


My Lost Spirit

by YouDontDrinkScotch



Category: Scrubs (TV)
Genre: Angst, Character Death, Character Turned Into a Ghost, Ghosts, Grief/Mourning, Healing, Heavy Angst, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Spirits
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-16
Updated: 2020-11-11
Packaged: 2021-03-07 00:55:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 8
Words: 37,315
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26488288
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/YouDontDrinkScotch/pseuds/YouDontDrinkScotch
Summary: Being a doctor, J.D. had to deal with death countless times. Unfortunately, he wasn’t prepared for what would happen when he himself died.After being fatally struck down, J.D. comes back as a ghost to watch his friends mourn and grieve his passing, all while unable to do anything to help them.
Relationships: Carla Espinosa Turk/Christopher Turk, Perry Cox/John "JD" Dorian
Comments: 28
Kudos: 49





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Hello everyone! I’m back with another new fic!
> 
> I’m going to try to update this as often as I can, so please, stay tuned! Enjoy!

J.D. had always wondered what his last words would be. 

He had always thought he’d say them when he passed peacefully in the hospital at an old age, with all of his alive friends around him. He thought that he would get to tell them all how much they had meant to him, and that he would be so happy when he would get to see them all again. He would make sure that they all knew he loved them very much. He thought those would be his last words.

He hadn’t, however, expected his last words to be something he said on a daily basis.

He had been leaving the hospital after a regular shift, before Perry’s had ended. J.D. had walked past his partner, kissed him on the cheek, and told him, “Cya at home, Per.”

That was it.

His last words.

J.D. couldn’t help but hate them. They were a lie. Perry wouldn’t be able to see him back at home ever again. Their apartment - originally just Perry’s - that the two had made into their comfortable home would never feel J.D.’s presence ever again.

Another thing... J.D. also hadn’t expected his death to be so... sudden.

Like his last words, he thought he’d pass away in the hospital, peacefully, knowing full well this was the end.

But actually, his death had been the complete opposite. One minute, he was taking a step onto the crosswalk on his turn, and the next, _bam!_ Gone. Just like that.

J.D. had also thought that when he released his final breath, his friends would be there to hold his hand and speak comforting words to him as he departed, silent tears running down their faces.

But again... complete opposite.

He was completely alone. His broken body lay on the side of the road, blood pooling out in a crimson puddle around him and soaking the asphalt.

J.D. had just never believed that he would die from being hit by a car.

It had happened when he had been walking home from his shift, excited to get back home so he could await Perry’s arrival. He had wanted to cuddle with Perry on the couch while they watched - well, at least Perry watched - sports on the TV in content silence, with Perry gently running his hands through the younger doctor’s hair.

J.D.’s plans were ruined completely, however, when he took a few steps onto the crosswalk and into the street.

The sun had almost set then, so everything was shrouded in darkness. Especially the car roaring right towards him at full-speed, headlights off, most certainly not supposed to be going.

J.D. had only had a moment to process his unfortunate situation before the car had struck him. Then everything had gone black.

Then, he had woken up. Although... he was staring at his own body. That lead him to right now, still staring at his mangled corpse.

_What the hell?_ He pondered to himself.

_That’s... that’s me. That’s my body._

He continued to stare at his busted figure.

It was shoved up against the corner between the road and the sidewalk, eyes glazed over and unseeing. His mouth was open into a petrified screaming sort-of-look, with blood leaking out steadily. The right side of his face, the side pressed against the asphalt, had a large gash burning through it. From there, blood was pouring out rapidly, sticking in his now unkempt hair. Little droplets of crimson also dappled his unmoving face. He had several large wounds on his chest and torso, which were forming the large puddle of blood that surrounded his once-alive body. One of his legs was also torn to shreds, just barely in-tact. Everything was pale and blood-stained.

It was definitely not a pretty sight, especially when it was _his own body._

Having enough of staring at his corpse, J.D. decided to observe the next odd part.

He held a hand up to his face.

Instead of being solid, his hand was very pale, and he could see the road right through it. However, inside of his ghostly limb, what seemed like little stars were floating around inside of him.

He glanced down at his lower half to see that it looked just like his hand: transparent and faintly colored, with little stars twinkling around. Some stars also floated around his spirit, blinking and glittering. 

He noticed that we was wearing the same thing he had been while alive: regular scrubs. It was almost comforting to see something so familiar while in such an unfamiliar situation.

_So I’m a ghost. Huh._

J.D. honestly hadn’t expected the after life to be like... well, like _this._ He had expected to go to heaven, with the lesbian cloud and the milkshake pool where he and Turk would meet up at.

He didn’t think he’d find himself as a ghost, staring at his own mangled corpse.

_Is everyone’s death like this?_ He wondered. 

He had heard from so many patients who had come back from the brink of death tell him that they had seen a light and had felt an overwhelming feeling of calm wash over them; it was never about becoming a ghost and seeing their own dead self.

_Maybe it’s different for everyone._

That thought still didn’t comfort him. He wasn’t sure anything could, though, considering he had just died.

He took a few tentative steps towards himself and sat down.

He turned his head towards his body and let out a depressed sigh.

_I’m dead. That was my life, and now it’s over._

So that was it. It really was just gone, now. J.D. felt like he had just finished a book that had been so good, but had a really crappy ending.

He could imagine himself, alive, reading a book titled, ‘ _J.D.’s Life_ ’.

“ _That ending sucked!_ ” Imaginary J.D. declared.

Real J.D. laughed. Even as a ghost, he could still daydream.

His chuckle ended quickly, though.

_There was still so much I wanted to do. I was so young._

He placed his elbow on his knee and rested his head against his fist. He closed his eyes and tried to convince himself that this was all just a dream, and that at any moment now he’d wake up in his and Perry’s bed.

Suddenly, J.D.’s eyes snapped open.

_Oh, shit! Perry!_

He sprung up to his feet at an alarming speed.

_How the hell is everyone going to react?!_

Tears immediately formed at the corners of his eyes.

What the hell would they do without him? He wasn’t sure they’d be able to handle the news of his passing.

Grief tugged at his heart. It was stronger than anything he’d felt before.

He was dead. They were left without him. He’d never get to do all of the things he loved to do with them ever again.

He’d never get to play ‘World’s Most Giant Doctor’ with Turk ever again, or get to mount him and scream ‘ _Eagle!_ ’ He’d never get to gossip with Carla again and not be judged for participating in an activity some would deem ‘girly’. He’d never get to listen to Elliot’s hilariously long, insane stories, or hear her utter a series of frustrated ‘ _frick!_ ’s. Hell, he’d even miss the Janitor’s little schemes to torture him, and he’d even miss Dr. Kelso.

And, _oh, God,_ Perry.

Never again would J.D. be on the receiving end of one of Perry’s famously long-winded rants, or be called upon by one of his eardrum-splitting whistles.

But worst of all, they were supposed to spend the rest of their lives together. They were supposed to start a family. They were supposed to grow old together. They were supposed to live happily together forever, working at the hospital side by side.

But all of that was taken away from both of them. That was all gone.

J.D. collapsed to the ground - he found that it didn’t hurt at all, actually - with a loud sob.

He wasn’t supposed to die. He was supposed to do all of those things with Perry together. Perry, the man he loved. The man who just had his partner taken away from him.

J.D. wanted so badly for this all to be a dream. He wanted so badly to open his eyes and find himself in Perry’s arms. He wanted to be alive, taking in every moment of the rest of his life that he got to spend with the man he loved so, so much. He just wanted to _wake up._

But he never did.

******** 

J.D. stayed curled up into himself for who-knows-how-long before he heard voices.

His head snapped up, and he unwrapped his arms from his legs. He stood up to see an ambulance parked close to his body on the road, along with two paramedics approaching him through the dark.

“Dear, _God_ ,” one of them, a woman, gasped. “That driver hit someone.”

The other one, a man, stared at J.D.’s broken body in horror before sprinting towards him.

Ghost J.D. watched as the man crouched down next to him to check for a pulse. 

J.D. tried to get his attention, but to no avail.

_So I really am a ghost._

The paramedic stood up again to glance back at his partner with a disappointed expression.

“Dead,” he announced.

The woman gently walked towards him, face matching his.

“We gotta find some sort of ID and take him back.”

But J.D. didn’t want to stay to watch them haul his corpse away. He didn’t want to see the looks of grief on their faces when they discovered he was a doctor. He wanted to go back to the hospital and find his friends. He _had_ to.

So, he turned on his heels and marched down the sidewalk, back the way he had come before being struck down.

He almost felt reluctant to leave the body he once inhabited, but he would rather go back to the hospital to make sure his friends were okay than stay behind to watch the paramedics deal with the bloody body he no longer lived in.

As he walked, he wondered if things would’ve been different had he driven home.

_I wish I hadn’t decided to walk to the hospital this morning. I would’ve had my scooter. I would’ve missed the car. It never would’ve hit me, and I never would’ve died._

But he couldn’t change the past.

He was dead, and there was no going back.

It was strange, really, that he was actually dead. He had only known what it was like to live, so to actually be deceased had just never seemed like an actual possibility; that one moment he could be solid, breathing, and have a heart pumping blood, to the next being that he was just a ghostly remnant of a lost life was so unreal to him.

He noticed that as he padded along the sidewalk, his footsteps made no sound, and he didn’t cast a shadow. That didn’t surprise him, though. He was just a spirit, after all.

His depressing walk was over now, though. He had reached the hospital.

A large feeling of dread seemed to weigh down on his transparent shoulders.  
He’d have to go in there and watch his friends, one by one, discover that he had died.

_This sucks_ , J.D. thought gloomily to himself. 

Saying that this whole situation ‘sucked’ was really an understatement, but he just didn’t have the energy to describe just how agonized he really felt.

Pushing past his pain, he stopped in front of the sliding doors. They didn’t open.

_Was I really expecting them to?_

Signing, he held an arm up to poke the doors with a finger.

He jumped back when his finger went right through it, with his eyes stretched wide open. He paused for a moment to relax himself.

He almost felt silly for startling like that; he had expected that he’d gain the ability to pass through objects, - he saw that in fiction all the time - but he still hadn’t been prepared. It had been the strangest feeling, almost like poking a finger through jell-o.

He allowed himself another moment to prepare before stepping towards the door again. He stuck the same finger through and familiarized himself to the feeling. Next, he took a step through it, and then another. His head passed through at last.

When he got through completely, he paused.

_I just went right through a solid door. How cool was that?_

Finally, something he got to celebrate, if even for a moment. It was small, but he enjoyed it. He could imagine that if Turk were there, he’d find it just as cool.

His heart - at least, what felt like his heart - dropped again.

_I won’t get to tell him, though._

It hurt.

Although, he didn’t want to mope around, now. He had to find his friends.

He proceeded to make confidant strides down the hallway, making his way towards the ICU.

He passed by multiple people in the hallway and found himself stepping away to avoid them even though they clearly didn’t know he was there. He stopped suddenly, an idea popping into his starlit head.

_Can I go through people?_

He waited until a slow-paced doctor began to head towards him, completely unaware that a ghost was right there, and waited to pass right through him.

J.D. grinned. At least he could have a _little_ fun.

When the doctor neared, J.D. ran. Ran right through the doctor. It felt just like the door, except... thicker. Like wading through sticky mud.

As J.D. skidded to a halt, he turned around to see the older doctor’s reaction.

The man had stumbled for a moment and shivered. He raked his gaze across the hallway, clearly trying to spot the reason his insides had just felt distorted. His eyes contained a mixture of fear and confusion.

Finding nothing, the older doctor shrugged, - although still remained spooked-looking - and continued on down the hall at a relaxed pace.

J.D.’s weak grin widened ever-so-slightly.

Okay, so being a ghost could be a _little_ fun. J.D. didn’t have to be miserable _all_ the time.

Maybe having the ability to find the good in a bad situation was a pretty nice thing to have.

J.D. started down the hallway again, legs moving at a slightly more excited pace. He made sure to jump through a few more confused doctors and patients. Why mope around constantly?

Finally, J.D. reached the ICU.

It was exactly the same as he had left it that evening.

Maybe a small part of him had expected it to be different, that because of his passing things would feel a bit off. But it was the same ICU he had walked into constantly everyday of work; with patients in their beds, nurses helping them, and doctors racing around from place to place and patient to patient.

It was all the same, and that was slightly comforting to J.D.

_At least some things can stay the same._

He glanced around at the familiar room, but didn’t find anyone he was looking for.

He decided he’d try all of the nurses stations, next.

He found himself taking the long, twisting routes throughout the hospital to check every nurses station. It didn’t tire him at all - after all, he didn’t have a body - but it _was_ boring. That was, until he remembered that he could literally pass through walls.

Faint excitement coursed through him again as he jumped through the dingy hospital walls.

He passed through room to room, finding a new patient in each of them. It felt so weird that absolutely nobody could see him, that he could pass literally right through their walls and they didn’t even blink an eye.

And it was honestly very fun.

He felt as if he were jumping over hurdles; he’d leap through a wall, run through the room, and leap out again.

J.D. forgot about all of his anxieties for a moment and just allowed himself to have fun; he gave himself a chance to act like an excited little kid because it brought him comfort.

Before long, he quickly came across the elevator.

_I can’t fly, unfortunately. I still gotta take this thing._

He had to wait until it opened with a _ding!_ before he could step right in, not even waiting for the doors to open. He didn’t think that’d ever stop being cool.

When he entered the mini-room, he stood in the center of a few people. He poked a finger through some of them just for fun. It was amusing to him when they shuddered slightly.

_They have no clue that a ghost is in here with them._

When the elevator chimed again, J.D. cut in front and disappeared right through the doors.

As he landed, he turned left, heading straight towards the nurses station at a very determined pace.

And there she was.

Carla was sat in a chair in front of a laptop, hastily typing out something. She was just as J.D. had remembered her, which made sense, as J.D. hadn’t been dead all that long. To him, though, it had felt like forever. Her face was calm and determined.

_So she doesn’t know yet. Good._

J.D. hesitantly crept up to her.

He knew that she couldn’t see him - if no one else could, why would she? - but it still felt so _weird._

_I’m here, and yet I’m not._

J.D. felt another strong wave of grief tug at his heart.

She just looked so calm and relaxed. She had absolutely no clue that one of her best friends had just been killed, and that his spirit was standing right next to her. He was absolutely dreading the moment when she would find out, and this small illusion of peace would be crumbled up and shattered into a million pieces.

No one ever expects their friends or family to just die one day. Everyone you love is supposed to stay alive forever; they’re not supposed to die and leave you alone. Everything is supposed to stay exactly the same as it’s always been, with life going on as normal; with everyone happy and joyful and _living_. It’s not supposed to change. It’s just not.

So why the hell did it?

Tears slipped down J.D.’s transparent face as he crouched down next to Carla.

He didn’t want her to hear that he had died. He wanted things to stay this way. To stay as if he were still alive, with everyone just living on like they’re supposed to.

He wanted to stay in this moment forever, the calm before the storm. He knew that as soon as the words “J.D.’s dead” were spoken to her, everything he had ever loved would change. Nothing would be the same ever again. Everyone would be wracked with total, absolute grief.

He just wanted his friends to remain happy.

J.D. couldn’t help but chuckle to himself.

After all he had gone through - literally dying, having to see his own bloody and broken corpse, and having to come to the realization that he was dead - he still found that his biggest concern was his friends.

_I guess I’m just not ready to leave them._

He stared at Carla some more, tears now blocking most of his vision, and just took in the sight.

It was so normal. And he loved that.

But things, of course, had to go on.

J.D.’s head snapped up to full attention when Carla suddenly took her gaze away from the computer and up to find someone steadily approaching her.

_Oh, God. Oh no. Oh_ shit.

It was Perry.

J.D. wasn’t ready to see him. It just increased his feeling of grief. He didn’t ever want to see Perry realize that the man he loved had been taken away from him. He didn’t want to see Perry know that he would never get to spend the rest of his life with his partner. Perry wasn’t ever supposed to look like that. He was supposed to remain his strong, cocky, ranting self. Not a broken down shell of a man.

J.D. did, however, feel relief sweep over him when he noticed that Perry clearly hadn’t heard anything. His face did look concerned, but it wasn’t swept over with the absolute pain and agony J.D. was sure to arrive.

Ghost J.D. leapt to his feet to take in the sight of his lover.

Would J.D. ever see him normal ever again? Would every next sight of the man be one of a broken, completely destroyed Perry Cox?

J.D. knew the answer to that question, but pushed it to the back of his mind.

Perry stopped in front of the station and began to tap his fingers on the counter. He looked sheepish.

“Heya, Carla?” He asked.

J.D. smiled. It was so nice to hear Perry’s voice. Although he hadn’t been dead long, it felt like ages since he had last heard that sweet voice.

Carla hummed in response to the older man.

Perry brought his gaze up to meet Carla’s.

“Have you heard anything from Newbie? He usually calls me when he gets home to let me know he made it okay. He hasn’t called me today, though. I tried to contact him - a few thousand times -, but he didn’t answer.” Perry chuckled nervously and ran a hand through his curls. J.D. could tell that he was trying to keep a brave face like he normally did. “Y’know, usually, Newbie answers any of my calls within the first three rings.”

His usually strong and confident voice was edged with pure worry.

J.D. felt a mixture of depression and an insanely powerful wave of love. He rarely ever saw Perry in such a state of disarray.

_He’s worried about me._

Carla blinked apologetically at him.

“Sorry, I haven’t. Maybe he just got busy with something and forgot.”

_I never forget._

Perry kept her gaze and warily smiled to himself.

“Yeah. Probably.”

But even Perry knew that wasn’t true, and J.D. knew that.

Carla gave him a worried smile.

“I’m sure he’s fine.”

And at that, warm tears flowed down J.D.’s face again.

He so, so badly wanted that to be true. Every imaginary bone in his imaginary body was burning with the desire to just have that be _true._ He wanted Perry to return home to simply find that J.D. had fallen asleep on the couch or something. He wanted Perry to discover that everything really was fine, and he and J.D. would continue to live happily together like they were supposed to.

“Right. I’ll finish my shift,” Perry told her in a still-wavering voice. “And head home. He probably just fell asleep or something, knowing him. I’ll have to kill him for making me worry so damn much.”

_Ironic choice of words, there, Per,_ J.D. tried to joke to himself. It didn’t help at all.

Perry pulled himself away from the counter to stride away down the hallway again, coat-tails flying behind him in a flurry.

J.D. was left in a state of sadness.

He almost felt... well, _guilty._ Like it was somehow his fault for being _killed._ He knew it was stupid, but knowing that Perry would eventually find out and be wracked with an agony like never before all because of him just made J.D. way too emotional for his own good.

_Why can’t things just stay the same?_

And then, the feeling of nausea increased immensely when the hospital phone next to Carla began to ring.

She hadn’t even answered it yet, but J.D. still just _knew_ what’d it be about.

_She’s not supposed to know! Things aren’t supposed to change! I’m not supposed to be dead! I’m supposed to still be alive and with my best friends!_

Anxiety was coursing through J.D.’s spirit stronger than anything he had ever felt before.

This was it. The phone call that would change everything.

Carla placed the phone to her ear and answered with an innocent, “Hello?”

J.D. was frozen.

Completely frozen.

“...Yes, this is Carla.”

Time seemed to freeze, all except for Carla.

“...Yes.”

And then...

And then...?

Her face completely fell, and her world began to shatter around her.


	2. Chapter 2

How are you supposed to react when you find out that one of your loved ones had died?

J.D. knew that, just like grieving, there was no wrong way to do it. Everyone had their own way of reacting, and each one was valid.

Some people immediately start crying, and some just never seem to properly take it in.

And Carla?

Well, J.D. got to witness her reaction right then and there.

He knew that it was probably the paramedics that had called her. They had probably found some sort of ID and decided to call his work place. But he knew one-hundred percent that whoever was on the other line had definitely just told her that he was dead.

J.D. immediately knew when she was told something along the lines of “J.D.’s dead” when her face morphed into one of pure shock. Underneath it all, J.D. could just see everything inside of her breaking. It was like watching a previously sturdy town get hit with a horrendous earthquake and go crumbling down. She mumbled a shaky “Thank you” before hanging up, and then she broke.

Tears began to stream down her face rapidly. She wasn’t sobbing, however. Her face was stuck in a state of horror, pain, and grief, but no sobs erupted from her. Her mouth was open just slightly, and her eyes were glazed over. She was obviously struggling to process the news of J.D.’s death.

J.D. had never felt so bad for her. She was suffering. She didn’t deserve that.

She had been placed in such an awful situation; she was obviously the first one of his friends to find out about his gruesome passing, so she would have to tell everyone else while still in her shocked, tortured state.

When Carla placed her elbows on the counter and buried her face in her hands, J.D. instinctually stepped forward and placed a hand on her shoulder.

It went right through her.

And at that moment, J.D. hated the world. Here was Carla, obviously suffering, and J.D. was right there and completely unable to comfort her in any way.

He just wanted to _help her_.

But he couldn’t. He couldn’t because the world had stripped him of his own life and placed him back here to watch his friends suffer while he could only watch.

It was so _unfair_.

J.D. decided that even though he couldn’t do anything, he’d stay with her. It helped just a little to imagine that somehow his ghostly presence could comfort her even just slightly.

Carla never made any sound. She just kept her face in her palms and silently cried. She was trying to take in the fact that one her best friends was dead, and that she had to tell everyone else.

And right then, J.D. could only think one thing. And again, it was such an understatement. It didn’t even come _close_ to describing the heartache and pain, the pure hatred he felt to the world for putting his friend through this. He had thought it before, and felt it again with the same amount of pure despise.

_This completely sucks_.

The two both stayed in their positions for quite some time. J.D. was willing to stay there forever if he had to. Carla shouldn’t be alone, even if her only company was someone she couldn’t even see.

It did end, however, when Elliot appeared from around the corner.

_Oh, God_.

Just another person J.D.’d never get to talk to again. Another person he’d never get to hold a conversation with, or get to touch. J.D. just wanted to be able to hug her.

He so badly needed some form of physical comfort, but he’d never get it. He’d never get it because somebody in a car had decided to race ahead and skip the red light.

“Hey, Carla? Have you seen-“

Elliot’s familiar chirp was cut short when she noticed Carla having a breakdown. Her jaw dropped open and her eyes widened dramatically. It was a sight that J.D. would’ve found comical in any other situation.

“Oh my God, Carla! What happened?!” Elliot fretted as she ran over to her best friend.

Carla stood up from her chair rather unsteadily and gratefully fell into Elliot’s open, welcoming arms when they reached each other.

And now, Carla did start sobbing.

She buried her face into Elliot’s shoulder and let out all of the pain. They were big, loud, emotional sobs that earned some odd or concerned looks from people idly passing by.

Elliot began to rub soothing circles onto Carla’s back.

“Carla... Carla, it’s okay...” Elliot tried to reassure.

Carla gave another ugly sob.

“Elliot... it’s _not!_ ”

Elliot’s eyebrows scrunched together in fear. Whatever it was Carla was crying about, it had to be _bad_.

And it really was. Oh, it absolutely, totally was.

“Carla...” Elliot began in an entirely frightened tone. “What... what happened...?”

Carla’s small looking form that was clutching on to Elliot for dear life was racked with another violent sob.

“Elliot...” Carla choked out. “It’s J.D.”

Elliot froze.

“What... what happened to J.D....?”

But she already knew the answer, didn’t she? Nothing as bad as what Elliot absolutely dreaded to be true could make Carla, one of the strongest women Elliot knew, completely break down in her arms.

And, sadly, her worst fear was confirmed.

“ _He’s dead._ ”

Elliot stopped moving completely. J.D. could see her entire world crumbling behind her blue eyes; any shard of hope that she had that her worst fear would be untrue just shriveled up and died. Any and all little lights of joy she had floating around in there all just blinked out instantly.

But what totally surprised J.D. was that she didn’t cry.

She held her ground and remained holding on to Carla, but no tears flowed; although J.D. knew that she felt just as much pain as Carla.

“How did... when... what... _how_...?!” Elliot stuttered out, clearly in shock.

Carla tried to stabilize herself, but failed. She sobbed again, but still tried to explain through the tears.

“I got a call... there was a drunk driver... he crashed...” Carla sniffed loudly and continued. “The paramedics arrived...”

Her body shook violently again as she was struck with another wave of tears.

“And they... they _found him_. On the street... the driver hit him... and he’s _dead_...”

Elliot’s face was completely horrified; the worst kind of horrified J.D. had ever seen. Actually, horrified seemed like a drastic understatement. It was far worse than that. So much worse, J.D. wasn’t even sure any words could describe it. The word that came closest would probably be _excruciating_.

And then the tears _did_ flow.

They flowed freely and quickly, each one of them filled with sickening pain. They trailed down her cheeks to land on the cold, grimy hospital floor.

And J.D. cried with her. Seeing his friends in so much pain _hurt_. It hurt more than being stabbed in the gut. It hurt more than falling off a cliff. It hurt more than that one little flash of twisting, gut-wrenching agony he had felt before dying.

And what amazed him was that this was all because of _him_.

He never really thought that he’d make such an impact on anybody’s life, but here were two of his best friends absolutely breaking down to the point of breathless sobs because he had died.

It was mesmerizing.

Mesmerizing because he had managed to fill these two people with so much love. Mesmerizing because he had been able to have made such an imprint on them; that he had been able to fill their hearts with such joyful memories they would never forget. It was so beautiful, yet right now, it was so painful.

It was bittersweet.

Elliot pulled herself away from Carla slightly to mutter, “Who else knows?”

Carla drew back, too, to look Elliot in the eyes.

“Just you,” she whispered.

Elliot pulled Carla back in and squeezed her comfortingly.

“Dr. Cox needs to know.”

“I know...”

J.D. could feel his nonexistent stomach churn.

_Oh, God, please no_.

He didn’t want to see Perry’s reaction. He really didn’t. To see the man he loved with his entire heart crumble into a broken mess wasn’t what J.D. desired in the slightest.

But he knew he’d have to watch.

He had to, for Perry.

Because J.D. knew that even though he was wholly nonexistent to Perry, he’d have to stick by his partners side through thick and thin.

They had promised each other.

“I’ll page him to meet me in the break room,” Carla said breathlessly to Elliot.

J.D. decided to accept fate. He clenched his fists and squeezed his eyes shut tight.

He’d suffer through this with Perry. He had to.

He _had_ to.

And then Carla paged him.

She sent him a page that would only lead him into depression.

It was like watching the entire universe set a plan into action. Carla sent a page, then she’d meet Perry in the break room, and then she’d tell him, and then Perry’s entire world as he knew it would change.

He’d learn that the person he was supposed to be with forever had been taken away from him, and he’d never be the same ever again.

_Shitty plan, there, universe_ , J.D. scowled to himself.

“I have to go tell him,” Carla said in desperation through the tears.

Elliot squeezed her tighter, then let her go.

“Good luck.”

_Luck’s not really on our side if I went and died, huh?_

Then, as Carla began to falter down the hallway towards a new wave of grief, J.D.’s starlit spirit followed her.

He watched her walk down the path of doom while her footsteps planted down on the ground with the weight of the world. Tears still streamed down her face, and her eyes were still hazy.

But finally, she arrived.

She stumbled through the doorway and into the break room.

Perry wasn’t there yet.

_Thank God_.

That gave J.D. just a little more time before he had to watch what would probably be the worst sight in his life - could he say life? Or would it be afterlife? He didn’t know.

Carla numbly lowered herself onto the couch in the middle of the dimly lit room. Because it was night, all of the lights in the building were diminished, and the only source of a glow in the break room were pale lights hanging on the wall. They cast Carla’s face into a faint yellow glow, lighting up the clear tears resting on her cheek.

J.D. gently crept in after her. He knew that she couldn’t hear him in the slightest, but instinct still made him place his feet carefully.

He made his way over to the other couch against the wall and sat down.

Anxiety was racing through his imaginary heart. He tried to ease his breathing to calm it, but then remembered that he didn’t do that anymore.

And then, suddenly, like a storm without warning, Perry sauntered into the room.

“Carla? You paged m-“

His face dropped when he saw Carla crying.

He immediately ran over to her and placed himself next to her on the couch. He awkwardly raised his hand and tentatively placed it on her shoulder. He was never one for physical contact.

“Carla...? What the hell happened...? If it’s anything Gandhi did, I’ll kill him.”

Carla buried her face in her hands and slowly shook her head.

“It’s not Turk...” she managed to sob out.

Perry’s eyes flicked around in confusion. J.D., who had been able to learn Perry’s emotions better than anyone, also noticed fear behind them.

“Carla... _what the hell happened?_ ” Perry said the last part very slowly. It was edged with desperation, too.

Carla shifted herself slightly so she was facing Perry more.

“Perry... I’m so sorry... I’m so sorry...”

She began to repeat those words over and over again, each one growing more and more pained.

Perry’s eyes were absolutely _terrified._ His jaw was hanging open slightly, and his eyebrows were furrowed together. The muscles in his jaw were also twitching, and his hand lowered from Carla’s shoulder.

J.D. had never seen Perry this frightened, and it filled him with so much sorrow. Perry should never look like that. His face was supposed to stay in the same grumpy scowl he carried with him everywhere that would, albeit incredibly rarely, twitch into a smile when he was feeling especially happy.

“Carla,” he told the crying woman sternly, voice wobbling slightly. “You have to tell me what happened.”

Carla pulled her face away from her hands and turned towards the curly-haired doctor.

Her eyes locked into his, and she drew all of her courage together to speak those two words that held so much pain. Two words that would absolutely destroy Perry Cox right then and there.

“J.D. died.”

Silence.

Followed by more silence.

Then followed by... even more silence.

It seemed to stretch on forever. A torturous forever that made J.D. want to scream until his ghostly head exploded.

“W-what...?” Perry finally choked out after an eternity. It came out as nothing more than a weak whisper.

His eyes were empty. They were completely hollow. No emotion hid inside of his cloudy blue eyes; they were devoid of _anything_. It was scary.

Fresh droplets slid down Carla’s face again, but she tried to remain strong. She still wasn’t touching Perry in anyway - a smart move - but she still stared into his clouded eyes, although his didn’t meet hers.

“Perry, I’m so sorry... I just got a call... there was a crash, and the paramedics found J.D. on the side of the road. He had been hit by the drunk driver who crashed. I’m so sorry...”

Perry continued to burn his gaze into absolutely nothing in particular. His eyes just stared ahead, still missing any emotion.

“He’s... he’s dead...?”

“Yes... Perry, I’m so sorry...”

J.D. remembered Elliot’s expression before this, and how he had described it has excruciating. Well, Perry’s face was even worse than that, somehow. It was completely beyond pain.

To anyone else, it may have looked like Perry was numb; like he was totally empty on the inside.

But J.D. knew him. He knew all of Perry’s emotions, no matter how much the older man hid them.

Inside, Perry was being completely torn up. If hearts really could shatter into a million pieces, then Perry’s definitely just did. This man was _suffering_. Everything inside of him was painfully ripped away and replaced with the most insane grief ever. Perry’s whole brain was fogged over in anguish, misery, and numbing sadness.

And it tore J.D. into pieces.

“What... what happened to the drunk driver...?” Perry asked, voice hoarse.

Carla blinked in confusion.

J.D., too, felt surprised. Why ask that?

“What?” Carla asked.

“The driver who hit him,” Perry asked her, pupils flicking ever so slightly in her direction. “What happened to him...?”

“He... he died, Perry. After he... well... after he...” Carla stumbled over her own words. “Well... y’know. Afterwards, he crashed into a lamppost. He’s dead.”

And then Perry’s face _changed_.

It was terrifying. It was an expression J.D. had never even seen on the older man before. It was _dangerous_.

It was absolute _hatred_. It was a despise like no other. The Devil himself would quake in fear if on the receiving end of Perry’s glare. J.D. didn’t like that look on his partner, not at all.

“Good. Fucker deserved to die.”

Carla’s face morphed into an expression of horror.

“ _Perry!_ I know what he did, but he was still a _life_.”

“I don’t _care_ ,” Perry growled out with pure malice.

But J.D. knew that, deep inside, Perry didn’t actually feel the desire for the driver to have had a gruesome, painful, bloody death. Perry just needed something to blame. He hated the world right now, and he had to take his pain out on something.

But then, Carla made the fatal mistake of touching his arm. It was supposed to be a touch to bring him back to his senses, but Carla had forgotten Perry’s most stressed rule: Don’t. Ever. Touch him.

Perry turned his stare to penetrate into Carla’s soul. Every single muscle in his body has just tensed up.

And he began to shake. Every limb just began to vibrate violently.

Due to his rough childhood, touching Perry unprompted just made him freak. It obviously sent him back into some horrible memories.

So to touch him right now, while in such a weak state? Now _that_ was the worst mistake anyone could ever make.

While tremors coursed through his entire body, he spat out two simple words with nothing but pure malevolence.

“ _Get. Out._ ”

So, Carla stood up immediately — face now absolutely terrified — and rushed out of there like her life depended on it.

Perry just sat there, still shaking. His breaths were coming in uneven gasps, and his eyes contained pure, burning fire.

J.D. didn’t even have the energy to walk over there and pretend that he could do anything, because the hard truth was, he couldn’t.

Perry was in the worst state of his life right now, and a spirit that clearly couldn’t interact with him in any way wouldn’t do anything to extinguish the fire that was Perry Cox.

The man was a wreck, and nobody could do anything. It destroyed J.D. entirely.

Eventually, Perry stood up. And what followed would forever be burned into J.D.’s memory.

After standing, Perry marched behind the couch and gripped a chair by it’s legs. Then, he let out an earsplitting howl of pain and slammed the chair against the wall. It shattered into several shards and splinters.

To finish, he kicked another chair as hard as possible - breaking the chair’s leg in the process - and stumbled out of the room on uneven legs, shouting out a very loud “ _Goddammit!_ ”, and leaving a dead J.D. behind in his wake who could only stare after him in horror.

*********

J.D. leapt out of the hospital’s doors and landed, spying Carla standing outside the car in the parking lot.

He had no clue where to go now. After Perry had stormed out after his utterly horrifying breakdown, J.D. hadn’t been able to find him anywhere. He had made sure to look around for absolutely any sign of the man, but to no avail.

People had, however, heard his breakdown. Even as a ghost who couldn’t interact with anyone, J.D. could hear the gossip spreading like wild fire.

Everyone was now discussing what could’ve made the typically callous doctor completely break like that.

“ _Do you think he lost a patient or something?_ ”

“ _It’s gotta be bigger than that. Maybe something bad happened to a family member._ ”

“ _The guy doesn’t have any family._ ”

“ _He’s got Dr. Dorian._ ”

The conversation J.D. recalled had ended after that with both ends of the discussion shrugging it off. 

_I guess no one wants to believe I’m dead. I still can’t quite believe it, either._

J.D.’s shoulders dropped. Pretty soon, everyone in the hospital would hear about his tragic death.

J.D. guessed that soon, Dr. Kelso would be notified of his passing, and he would then share the news with the entire hospital.

_Can’t wait to see_ that _happen,_ J.D. thought with an eye roll.

Back to the present, he ran up to Carla who was unsteadily getting into her car.

J.D. figured he’d ride home with her to see Turk’s reaction - as if he weren’t emotionally drained enough. He was so tired of watching his friends, one by one, lose any and all happiness they had. He just wanted this to be over.

_It can’t really end though, can it? I’m already dead. I don’t think there’s anything beyond that._

J.D. passed through the passenger side door, but paused.

He was standing _inside_ of the seat he needed to be sitting in.

_Great. How do I ride in this thing?_

Suddenly, his legs tensed up and were pushed out of the seat, forcing him into a sitting position. He almost felt... _solid_.

_How the hell did I do that?_

Before he had time to ponder on that strange experience, the car lurched into action.

_Damn it. Gonna have to get used to being a ghost, huh?_

As the car drove into the street, J.D. was staring at his sparkling legs when he heard Carla sniffle suddenly.

He brought his head up to see Carla crying again.

His pretend heart broke.

“C’mon, Carla, don’t cry...” J.D. told her.

Of course, she didn’t hear, and she remained crying.

_This sucks. Why the hell am I back here? I can’t do anything. This is almost torture._

He could only sit back and watch as tears streaked down Carla’s face.

Was this really what the afterlife was like? J.D. had been expecting something... better. Or literally anything else.

_I’m just back here, but invisible. I haven’t even seen any other ghosts. Is it just like this for me?_

J.D. was pulled from his thoughts as Carla’s sobs continued.

He sighed.

Some part of him just wanted to get away from the world he thought he would’ve left behind, but the other stronger part knew that he really wanted to stay here for his friends.

_They shouldn’t be the only ones who have to suffer through this._

Before long, the car pulled up to the apartment building.

When she turned the car off, Carla pressed her head against the wheel.

“I’m so sorry...,” Carla muttered through tears.

Who she was saying sorry to, J.D. wasn’t quite sure. He didn’t have time to ponder on that, though, as Carla was already stepping out of the car.

J.D. perked up and leapt through the car door, passing through it effortlessly.

“How cool was that, Carla?” He said unenthusiastically as his feet hit the ground.

Of course, she didn’t budge.

_Dammit. I’m already getting lonely._

His starlit spirit followed behind his weeping friend as she made her way up to her and Turk’s apartment.

It felt awkward trailing behind her like that and not talking. It made him feel almost... creepy...

_She has no clue I’m here._

Finally, they reached the apartment door.

Carla wrestled with her keys for a bit before the door finally unlocked with a _click!_

J.D. jumped in past her through the wall.

_There he is._

Turk was sitting on the couch, staring at the TV. Because it was about 3:00 AM, the whole room was dark, all except for the weak light shining over Turk from the television. It was almost a tranquil scene, with Turk sat there peacefully, just contentedly watching whatever was on.

_Run, Turk!_ J.D. felt like shouting out.

The surgeon’s head whipped back to see Carla walking in.

“Hey, baby! How was-“ his face dropped immediately when he saw Carla’s tear-stained, exhausted expression. “Baby? What happened?!”

Turk sat up abruptly and ran over to his wife. He reached out to touch her face, rubbing his thumb over her cheek. Carla seemed to melt into his touch.

“Turk... we need to talk...”

Fear flashed across Turk’s face. Those words never meant anything good. _Ever._

“Umm... okay...” Turk mumbled.

Carla lead him over to the couch where they both sat down, facing each other.

J.D. got a horrid flashback to Carla telling Perry.

_Please don’t be as bad his him._

“Carla... what happened...?”

Carla began to sob again.

“Turk... I’m so sorry...”

She practically fell into Turk’s arms, and J.D. didn’t blame her. She was absolutely exhausted from having to tell Elliot and Perry. This was so, so painful for her. No one person should ever have to tell all of someone’s loved ones that they were dead.

Turk traced comforting circles into Carla’s back.

“Baby... what...?”

Carla just sighed. She was so tired of this.

“J.D.’s dead...”

Turk stopped.

“...Huh...?”

And he really meant that ‘huh’. He obviously hadn’t registered the words Carla had spoken. Turk’s brain was a magical thing, and was able to block out any negative thoughts about J.D. being hurt. J.D. being dead just simply _wasn’t an option._

“Turk... I got a call today at work from the paramedics... he was hit by a drunk driver... he’s _dead_ , Turk...”

Turk’s face was still frozen. He wasn’t moving _at all._

J.D. knew Turk so damn well that he knew exactly what was happening. The news just didn’t in anyway register in his brain.

To him, J.D. could never die. It just didn’t happen. It could never in a million years happen.

So Turk just stayed as still as a statue while Carla sobbed in his arms.

J.D. cried with her.

_I never wanted to see everyone like this. They’re not supposed to be like this. They were never supposed to be like this._

And as he watched Turk lose all of his innocence, warm tears slid down his face. He could only think one thing, and he felt it with every fiber of his ghostly being.

_Why the hell did I have to die?_


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello everyone! First, I want to say thank you to those who commented or left kudos! They are very much appreciated!
> 
> Next, I’ve discovered that I’m going to be able to keep a schedule on when I update My Lost Spirit. I plan on updating the story every Monday, so please, stay tuned!
> 
> Again, thanks for reading, and I hope you enjoy the chapter!

The TV’s weak glow continued to faintly light up Turk and Carla’s embracing forms all throughout the rest of the night.

It was now 6:57 AM, and neither one of them had moved at all, besides Carla’s shoulders occasionally shaking from crying. Eventually, though, they subsided as the night progressed - she was probably just too tired to continue.

Turk, on the other hand, hadn’t moved an inch.

He was still just completely frozen. His arms remained wrapped around Carla, but he was absolutely still. His face was still stuck in a state of shock, his mouth was still opened slightly, and his eyes were glazed over. J.D. could practically see the “Error” message over his eyes.

Turk was never meant to be like this. What had happened to the Turk who seemed to be filled with boundless energy? The same Turk who could carry J.D. on his shoulders and dash down the large hospital hallways as J.D. screamed “ _Eagle!”_ at the top of his lungs? What had happened to the same Turk who would always laugh at the strange shenanigans Rowdy got up to no matter what?

It was a simple answer.

He was gone.

J.D. had been like Turk’s other half, and without J.D., Turk had been stripped of his usual goofiness. Without J.D., who would play out all of the strange games they loved to play? No one. The pranks they got up to were only for the two of them. Those two were completely inseparable.

Hell, Perry and Carla had always liked to joke that J.D. and Turk would one day leave them for each other.

_Well, one of us had to leave._

J.D. sighed and leaned back on the couch.

Ever since Turk had frozen up and he and Carla remained stuck on the couch, J.D. had been sitting there and watching whatever the hell happened to play on TV.

Right now, some strange infomercial was dragging on for an uncomfortably long amount of time. J.D. was only half focusing on it. He couldn’t exactly do anything else, though. Ghosts didn’t need to sleep.

After a while, J.D. decided there that he didn’t want to stay and watch Turk and Carla destroy themselves over his death, or watch strange infomercials because he couldn’t change the channel; he wanted to go see Perry.

_He’s probably at our apartment right now._

After his breakdown, it would make sense that Perry would escape the hospital and head home. J.D. knew that Perry was also probably drinking himself into a coma this very moment, but he shoved that thought into the back of his mind.

_I’ve gotta see him._

J.D. tore his half-focused eyes from the TV and sat up. He turned to face Turk and Carla.

“Bye, guys. I’ll be back soon, though. I promise.”

No response.

_God, I’m so lonely._

J.D. sighed and strolled right through their couch and out the door.

As he was walking down the hallway, he stopped abruptly to wonder about something.

_Wait a minute. If I can go through walls, doors, cars and people, why am I able to walk down the hallway and not fall? It’s on a higher level, so how am I-_

Suddenly, the world seemed to fall beneath J.D.’s feet. Everything became a mass of swirling lights and colors as the ghost plummeted down.

Actually, it wasn’t the world that had fallen. It was only J.D.

He vanished right through the hallway and began to fall down all the way to the bottom floor, but not before passing through several other hallways. 

Finally, after flailing through the air helplessly, he eventually landed on the ground without a single sound — he didn’t even feel any pain.

J.D. sat up slowly when he realized that he felt just fine — well, at least physically.

_What the hell was that?!_

He looked up to see that the ceiling was perfectly normal.

_I just went through the ground like I do walls._

He shook out his head to clear his whirling thoughts.

_Think, J.D. What could’ve triggered it?_

Through the mess that was his head, he remembered that he had been wondering why he didn’t fall through the ground like he did walls.

Did just thinking about falling through the ground cause him to actually do it? Maybe not thinking about falling through higher floors allowed him to stay.

_So I control all of that?_

J.D. grinned.

That was so _cool._

He immediately stood up — without even an ache, how awesome! — and ran up the stairs all the way to the top floor.

He made sure that as he took each and every step, he focused on actually taking it.

As he strode down the hallway, he allowed himself to really feel the way his foot planted on the ground, and the way the floor felt through his ghostly shoe and to his foot.

Finally, he paused in the middle of the corridor.

He took a deep breath.

He tried to bring his thoughts away from the feeling of his two feet being stable on the ground, and instead focused on what it had felt like to plummet down right through the floor.

And then it happened again.

His form passed through the floor again, and he crashed down through all the other hallways. He could see other doors fly by past his vision, and instinctually flinched every time he passed through another floor.

Finally, he fell all the way to the bottom again without even a small _thump!_

_That. Was. Awesome!_ J.D. excitedly thought to himself with a huge grin.

So maybe being a ghost had it’s perks. Maybe he didn’t have to only focus on the bad. Maybe he could actually allow himself to be like his old self: happy, full of energy, and just glad to be alive.

Well, the last part had to change a little.

J.D. pulled himself up from off the ground — again, without even a single bruise — and stood up on his feet.

Although he would rather stay here and continue to fall through the ceiling over and over again, he knew that he had to go and see Perry — even though he knew it’d kill him inside.

J.D. trudged out through the apartment building’s walls and stopped outside.

_How am I going to get there?_ He realized.

He could walk, but that’d take awhile.

_Plus, I’m really not feeling up to it._

Last time he had walked somewhere, it hadn’t exactly ended well.

He wandered away from the building and stopped on the sidewalk right next to the road. He watched the cars roll by.

Suddenly, an idea popped into his head.

_I can jump into a passing car, and then stabilize myself quickly. If I can do it with floors, that’s gotta work on cars!_

J.D. waited until he saw a car that was slower than the others, and took a leap.

At first, things seemed to be going well. He had been able to jump successfully through the door and into the car, but he had been so caught up in leaping that he had forgotten to stabilize himself.

Passing right through the seat he needed to be in, J.D. fell right into the middle of the road. He let out an “ _Umph!_ as he went rolling across the asphalt.

J.D. had never been so thankful for gaining the ability to feel no pain, because he was sure that if he could, he’d be absolutely scraped up and in agony.

Still a little dazed, J.D. sat up on his elbows only to duck down and curl up into himself when a car came rushing right at him.

It was an incredibly strange feeling as the large vehicle just simply passed right through J.D. He had instinctually expected to feel the car slam into him like the one that killed him, but of course, it didn’t. He was already dead.

Now stunned from his two little stunts, J.D. jumped to his feet and quickly dashed over to the sidewalk again.

Even though these cars couldn’t hurt him anymore, he still felt uneasy being in the middle of the road. He had, after all, been killed in the street. He didn’t blame himself for being uneasy.

Before long, J.D. finally prepped himself to try and jump into a car again.

_You can do this, J.D._

As a large, slow-moving van came rolling up, J.D. sprang.

This time, he was successful.

He soared through into the van and was able to focus on what it felt like to be alive and stable. Before he could fall through the floor, his strong thinking worked, and he collapsed onto the van floor in the back.

He sat up and threw his arms into the air.

“I did it!” He shouted excitedly.

J.D. glanced around. No one was here to share his victory. And even if anyone was, they wouldn’t see him.

He wasn’t going to let that get him down, though. He had come to realize that he was probably going to be alone for a long time, now — maybe even forever, although hopefully not — so he had to keep himself company.

_At least I’m pretty great company, right, me?_

He went back to smiling about his small triumph.

_That was nice_ , he thought contentedly to himself.

After allowing himself to feel actually happy for once in a while, he sat up to look out one of the windows.

To J.D.’s dismay, the van was beginning to turn away from the direction of his and Perry’s apartment.

_Crap!_

Before he really had time to think, J.D. stood up and poked his head out of the van.

Trailing behind it was another car that was still going the right way.

_I’ve gotta get into that one!_

Hardly giving himself time to prepare, J.D. leapt out of the van and into the car behind it.

He was once again able to stabilize himself at just the right time, and he landed in the back seat.

Letting himself come back to his senses, he realized that he was sitting next to a little boy, probably around six or seven.

“Hi,” J.D. greeted naturally.

No response.

“How strange is it that I can see you, but you can’t see me?” J.D. still asked.

It almost felt nice to feel like he was having a conversation.

Turning his attention away from the young boy who clearly had no idea he was there, J.D. stared out the car’s windows to judge the distance from here to his apartment.

He’d be fine if the car continued to go straight ahead; he’d probably just have to jump out of the moving vehicle, which was clearly no problem for him.

Luckily for J.D., the car did continue to go straight for the rest of the way.

When it finally got close enough to his apartment building, J.D. crawled past the kid and vanished through the car door and onto the street.

When he landed, he ran the rest of the distance across the road and stopped at the apartment’s parking lot to stare up at the building.

J.D. had no clue what kind of condition he would find Perry in, but he _did_ know that it wouldn’t be good.

J.D. remembered when Perry had lost those three organ-donor patients and had been absolutely determined to drink himself to death. J.D. had been the only one able to pull him out of it, so without J.D., who would pull Perry out of this?

J.D. shuddered.

He didn’t want to think about what would happen if Perry didn’t get through this. For now, he would focus on being there for his partner.

As J.D.’s spirit began to walk towards what he knew would be a painful scene awaiting him, a woman walking a small dog came strolling down the sidewalk a few feet away.

This normally wouldn’t be a problem, but the dog began to bark, startling J.D.

The dead doctor whipped his head to the side to glare at the yapping creature.

However, something surprised him. The dog seemed to be staring right at him.

It’s beady eyes were staring daggers right into J.D., and was barking and growling directly at him.

J.D. blinked in confusion.

_Maybe there’s something behind me?_ He wondered, not completely believing that this dog could see him.

But J.D. turned his head behind him to see... nothing. Just the regular street.

He turned back around to see that the dog was still glaring at him.

_What the hell?_

The woman walking the dog began to tug on it’s leash to walk it across the street, but the small creature still had it’s eyes trained on J.D. as it disappeared down the road.

J.D. stared after it.

Could the dog really have seen him? That was crazy, though, right?

But J.D. had remembered some of his old pets from when he was a kid. They had sometimes seemed to stare or bark at absolutely nothing in particular, even after J.D. had checked to confirm that nothing was there.

Back then, J.D. would’ve shrugged off the thought that animals could see ghosts, but now that J.D. actually was a ghost, he was pretty sure that that wasn’t so out of the ordinary anymore.

Shrugging off his strange experience, J.D. began his walk up to his and Perry’s apartment again. He didn’t have time to think about whether or not that dog really had seen him; J.D. had to see his partner.

As he made his way up the stairs to his home, every step he took seemed to weigh even more one after the other.

Last time he had seen Perry, the older man had been an absolute wreck. Knowing Perry, he was probably continuing his destructive grieving tendencies by destroying his liver with massive amounts of alcohol.

Finally, J.D. stopped at the front door.

Here he was.

What awaited him on the other side of the door definitely wouldn’t be a pleasant one, he knew, so he braced himself. He took a deep breath, and walked through the door.

The first thing that hit him was the absolute reek of alcohol.

Although J.D.’s sense of smell had depleted slightly when becoming a ghost, the alcohol stench still seemed to burn his nostrils.

The next thing he noticed, was, of course, Perry.

J.D.’s partner was sprawled out on the couch, a glass of scotch gripped in his unsteady hand. 

Accompanying Perry was a large, now-almost-empty-bottle of scotch sitting on the coffee table next to him, along with several empty glasses beside it.

As J.D. tentatively padded up closer to Perry, he noticed just how awful he looked.

Perry’s eyes were just slightly open and completely glazed over. J.D. honestly couldn’t tell if Perry was awake or not. He definitely wasn’t conscious, but he also wasn’t _un_ conscious. His eyes were also very red and puffy, and dried tear-tracks led down from them.  
Large, shadowy bags hung from his eyes as well.

J.D. could see his chest rising and falling in totally unsteady rhythms, and could hear his breath hitching in his throat.

Perry was also covered in a sheen of sweat, making him shine in a completely unpleasant way. His already usually unkempt curls now seemed to be in even more of a mess, with his hair sticking up in a million different directions.

Perry looked, well... exactly as J.D. thought he would.

That still didn’t mean that the scene didn’t fill J.D. up with absolute grief, though.

Perry was never supposed to look like this. He looked somehow even worse than he did when he had lost those three patients. Then, you could at least tell Perry was _alive_. Now, he looked half-dead. The only way it would be possible to tell he was still alive was from the unnatural-sounding breaths coming from his throat, and the ragged way his chest rose and fell.

J.D. lowered himself to sit on the coffee table.

As he stared at Perry, another horrible wave of sadness washed over him.

“God, Perry, I’m so _sorry..._ ” J.D. choked out. “I just wanna be back with you, Per. I just wanna be held by you again. I’m so sorry...”

J.D.’s sobs only hit deaf ears, and it hurt him.

He just wanted Perry. He just wanted to be able to curl up into Perry’s side, making himself feel tiny, and tell the older man that everything was alright. He just wanted things to be like normal, with them both fast asleep on the couch holding each other. He so badly wished that things could be like they were supposed to be, with both of them happy and breathing and _alive_ and able to live their lives together.

J.D. curled his head into his own lap and sobbed.

“Why the hell did I have to be taken from you...?!” He shouted out, tears prominent in his voice.

As his body trembled with the sheer power of his emotions, he jumped suddenly when Perry’s phone on the table began to ring.

J.D. wiped the tears from his eyes and watched as Perry stirred slightly.

Perry’s eyelids suddenly snapped open to reveal his bloodshot eyes. He let out a low growl and gently pulled himself up, his joints creaking. He was moving slowly and painfully, and J.D. could tell his mind wasn’t here — probably due to the mass amount of alcohol in his body.

Perry stretched out his trembling arm to clumsily grip the phone still ringing on the table. He brought it up to his ear and answered.

J.D. could tell that Perry had tried to say “Hello?”, but it came out more as a strange grumbling sound.

J.D.’s head perked up when he heard Carla on the other end.

“...Perry...?” J.D. faintly heard the nurse ask.

“Carla...? Carla... what... whattimeizit...?” Perry’s words were completely slurring together.

_God, how much did he drink?_

“Perry? Where are you? Are you okay?” Carla still sounded weary.

“Oh... dammit... _Fuck..._ ,” Perry spat out. “Carla, I’m at...”

Perry’s eyes glanced around the room. He was completely out of it.

“I’m attheapartment... it’z empty as hell, though...” Perry ended with a laugh that, honestly, was kind of scary. It didn’t sound like any kind of sound Perry should make, and it held absolutely no joy. It was empty. Pained.

“Perry, how much have you had to drink?!” Carla asked.

Perry grinned dopily.

“Thatzatoughone... I have no clue. Can’t feel anything, though. ‘S like... my mind iz... numb...”

Carla sighed. Talking with drunk Perry was _not_ easy.

“Listen, Perry. I called Dr. Kelso, and he was able to get you a week off, okay?”

“Y’mean Bobbo actually has a soul...?!”

“Yes, Perry. Now listen, I want to know if you’re _okay_.” Carla’s voice cracked at the end.

Perry’s face morphed into a strange expression.

“Well why don’t you tell me, Carla? J.D’s... he’s... I had ta... _Fuck_...”

Perry buried his face in his free hand.

“Carla, he’s fucking _dead._ It’s... ‘S... he’s _gone_. Goddammit...”

Tears began to flow down his face.

“Carla, I saw him... in the morgue...”

_That’s where he went last night?! Dear God..._

“Carla, he was _in there..._ They brought him in, and I _saw him_...”

_So they brought my body back to the hospital._

Carla was silent on the other line. J.D. could only imagine the look of horror on her face.

“...Carla, he was... everything was _wrong..._ he was in fucking shreds...” Perry continued.

J.D. wanted to wail. Perry never should of had to have seen J.D.’s dead body. To witness the broken and bleeding corpse of your partner was something no one deserved. And now, the memory of J.D. torn up, bleeding and dead was forever burned into Perry’s memory. That was traumatizing. He didn’t deserve that. Not at all.

J.D. continued to watch Perry as the older man curled into himself on the couch, now an absolute mess.

“God _dammit_ , Carla... he’s _dead..._ And I can’t get the damn image of him dead on the morgue table out of my head...” 

As Perry drunkenly cursed and cried, J.D. could only sit there and cry with him.

_I’m right here, Per,_ J.D. wanted to say to him. _I never really left. I never wanted to._

But J.D. knew that his words wouldn’t get through to Perry.

A large sob wracked the ghost’s body.

_Why the hell did I have to be taken from Perry? Why...?_

“Perry, I need you to _breathe_ ,” Carla, now in nurse mode, instructed Perry over the phone.

Surprisingly, Perry seemed to listen.

He tried to bring his breaths back to a steady pace and away from the broken rhythm he had going earlier. His trembling body seemed to relax slightly, and his tears flowed at a slower pace now.

“Carla... what am I supposed to do...?” Perry asked after calming down. His voice was exhausted.

Carla was silent for a moment. J.D. was sure she was crying.

“I don’t know.”

That was a scary response. Carla was always able to help others and guide them on the right path, so to have her clueless as to what to do in such an awful situation? Well, it was honestly terrifying to J.D.

To have to witness composed Carla have absolutely no control over something, to have to see usually bubbly and talkative Elliot completely breakdown, to have no ability to help goofy, silly Turk as he loses any and all happiness, and most of all to lay eyes on strong, confident, tenacious Perry breakdown to the point of excessive drinking and horrible sobbing was all a completely horrifying experience.

J.D. had absolutely no control to help them, and could only sit back and watch as they all destroy themselves.

He felt like he were at the hospital trying to bring a dying patient back to life, except that he was the only one there and had no medical equipment.

It was a useless attempt.

He couldn’t do anything.

“Carla, he was... he was my future. We had it all planned... we were supposed to spend the rest of our lives together... I fucking loved him so damn much, what the hell am I supposed to do now...?!”

There was nothing but pure agony and depression in Perry’s voice. It hurt J.D. so, so much.

What the hell _was_ Perry supposed to do? When one of the biggest parts of your life, the person you love to the point it hurts, the person that’s supposed to be by your side through all the good and bad is taken away from you, how are you expected to go on like normal?

J.D. felt empty. He was so tired of this same pain. He just wanted Perry.

Perry felt so damn close right now, and yet they were both so, so, so agonizingly far away from each other.

J.D. just wanted to be held by Perry again. He wanted to be tangled up together in their bed, with Perry whispering “I love you,” in J.D.’s ear. He wanted to be able to wake up every morning next to Perry and just be extremely grateful that, somehow, they were able to find each other.

But now those simple, everyday things had been taken from both of them.

It was all gone, never again to happen due to the massive divide between both J.D. and Perry.

Their happy, content life together was gone.

Perry was breathing; he was pumping blood, and he was _alive_. J.D. was a ghost, completely transparent, invisible, empty, and _dead_.

They were completely separated by two simple things: life and death.


	4. Chapter 4

_There I am._

J.D. stared down at his own body lying on the morgue table.

After Carla had eventually ended the call with Perry when she made sure he was at least okay, Perry had gone right back to his half-awake-half-asleep state, so J.D. had left. He had, once again, gone — what he liked to call it — involuntarily hitchhiking to get to the hospital.

Now, he stood before his dead body once again.

_It’s definitely seen better days._

It was looking a little better than when he had last seen it, though.

Now, the wounds that had previously been open wide and bleeding profusely had been cleaned up and closed. His leg, however, was still torn up and barely hanging on. It was clean, though.

A shudder ran up what felt like J.D.’s spine.

He never thought that he’d ever have to see his own dead body — who does? — but now, he had seen it twice.

It was so strange to see himself in such a state. Lying there on the table, his body was pale, unmoving, and lost of any and all life.

J.D. looked down at his spirit’s sparkling hands.

_I used to be inside of that._

That cold, lifeless body on the table used to be filled with so much... well, everything. It had loved, it had lost. It had known true happiness, and it had known true sadness. It had laughed, and it had cried.

It had lived, and now, it had died.

Somberly, J.D.’s ghost approached his old body.

“You sure were great, body. Thanks for everything,” he told it, voice thick with emotion.

In a fantasy, J.D. could imagine his corpse suddenly rising to say hello to his spirit, but in cruel reality, it remained still.

_It used to be filled with so much life._

J.D. mournfully sighed and turned around to leave. He didn’t want to see his own body anymore.

_That must have been horrible for Perry._

What had it been like for Perry to see his partner — who was previously happy, energetic, and full of life — lying dead and wounded on a cold morgue table? Not good, obviously.

_And now he’s back at home, recovering from trying to drink himself to death. Guess that proves that._

As J.D. strolled down the hospital’s hall’s and away from the morgue, he noticed just how unusual it felt. He was passing by so many doctors and patients and nurses, yet none of them knew he was there. He was completely unnoticeable.

Just to cheer himself up, J.D. had some fun jumping through a few of the people he passed by. Their shudders and curious looks around the hall still made J.D. chuckle a little bit.

Eventually he came across the same nurses station where Carla had received the news of his death.

Now that it was daytime, it wasn’t shrouded in a strange shadow that made the place feel ominous on such a night, and there were more people bustling around it to make it feel more lively.

It was almost strange to see it this way, teeming with life and crowded with busy doctors and nurses knowing that someone’s heart was crumpled into a million pieces there just last night.

Part of it filled J.D. with another wave of sadness as he remembered Carla first hearing about his untimely passing, but the other part felt comforted just by seeing this place again in a familiar light.

_How can something be so different, yet still the same?_

As J.D. wandered towards the station, he noticed that a lot of the doctors, nurses, and interns around it had their heads down together in conversation.

Then, he heard his own name. It was from one intern to another.

“Can you believe Dr. Dorian’s dead?”

“I mean... I don’t know... you never really expect the _doctors_ here to die, huh?”

J.D. watched them disappear down the hallway as he took it what one of them had said.

You never really _do_ expect the doctors to die at some point, do you? J.D. had gotten so used to dealing with the many deaths of the patients around here that to imagine the people who prevent those deaths could actually die themselves was not something he really thought could happen.

_Well, now I’ve learned that it sure as hell does happen._

Next, he realized that these people actually knew about his death. They were talking about it.

He guessed that the paramedics had called Dr. Kelso to let him know what happened, and that they were bringing his body in.

Because the hospital just worked that way, the word had then probably spread like wildfire. Everything did around here, so the news of an employee’s death most definitely passed from person to person faster than you could say “acute lymphoblastic leukemia”.

After watching the two interns depart, J.D. jumped up behind him to sit on the station’s counter. It was something he had done so often while alive, that he didn’t even think about doing it. He just did it.

Just then, Dr. Kelso came striding forward towards the nurses station, Ted by his side.

Kelso seemed to be walking at a slower pace, and his footsteps appeared to be heavy. His eyes were downcast, as well.

When he reached the spot right next to J.D., he stopped to look at the file he had in his hands. Suddenly, he began to speak to Ted who was paused right next to him.

“Y’know, Ted, I’m actually gonna miss Dr. Dorian.”

Dr. Kelso glanced up from the chart he was reading to face Ted, and continued.

“He definitely was an odd kid, that was for sure, but he was a damn good doctor. Probably one of the best in this place, actually.”

A large smile spread across J.D.’s face. Dr. Kelso, the Chief of Medicine, had just called him one of the best doctors in the hospital.

_Sure does suck that I’m only hearing it now when I’m dead, though._

But he wouldn’t let that get him down. This was a moment he wanted to celebrate.

“Y’know,” Dr. Kelso continued, “if the kid hadn’t already shacked up with Perry, he would’ve been perfect for Harrison.”

The Chief of Medicine had a small, sad smile on his face. Beside him, Ted spoke up, chuckling slightly.

“Yeah, sir.”

Dr. Kelso continued to glare at Ted, but there was no real anger behind his eyes. There was just sadness and wistfulness.

“Shut up, Ted, no one likes a kiss-ass.”

There was no actual malice behind his words — in fact, Dr. Kelso still had his somber smile on — but J.D. could tell he had said it to remain strong.

Then, J.D. watched as Dr. Kelso and the sweaty lawyer beside him began to walk away again down the long hallway.

J.D. stared after them with a laugh.

It was almost flattering to have Dr. Kelso think of him as ‘perfect’ for his son. Maybe Kelso would’ve been glad to have J.D. as part of his family.

J.D. would miss Dr. Kelso, even if he was a real right bastard sometimes.

The ghost leaned back slightly on the counter to try and relax himself. When he got comfortable, he stopped to think.

_So if I can walk and fall through floors on command, does it work with things like walls and this counter? If I think about it, will-_

Whatever questions he had were answered immediately as he fell through the nurses station and onto the floor.

He landed with a yelp.

_Even as a ghost I’m still clumsy._

Bringing his head up quickly to look around, he saw that his lower-half was stuck in the counter, while his head was poking out.

“Huh,” he simply muttered to himself.

The dead doctor stood up in one swift motion and landed ungracefully on his feet.

_So that proves that._

Then, suddenly, a mischievous smile spread across his starlit face.

_If I focus hard enough, can I move objects?_

He had heard so many stories of supposed ghosts moving things around in haunted houses, so _now_ was the time to actually test that theory.

_I’ve always wondered if it really was ghosts. Now I get to prove it by actually being the ghost._

Now there was something he never thought would happen. It was so weird, really. Being a ghost was something that had definitely made an appearance in his fantasies, that was for sure, but he never believed that it actually would — or even _could_ — happen. It was pretty unbelievable.

_One of my fantasies really did come to life._

J.D. grinned.

_And everyone always said they were crazy._

He wanted to rub it their faces, but then realized that _maybe_ this wasn’t the best fantasy to brag about coming true. Plus, he couldn’t rub it in anyone’s face. Tragic.

_Never mind that, I wanna freak some people out!_

Raking his gaze across the room, J.D. spotted a small pen sitting on top of the counter a few feet away.

_Something small I can start with._

He excitedly jumped through the counter and landed in front of the pen.

He stared at it.

_Prepare to be moved, pen._

J.D. attempted to clear his thoughts and remember how to focus on really _feeling_ something solid.

Slowly, he stretched his hand towards the pen.

He reached it. His hand was right there.

It passed right through the pen.

“Dammit!” J.D. shouted.

_Relax,_ he told himself, shaking out his head. _I’ll get it_.

Again, he held his hand in front of the pen, muscles twitching ever so slightly in anticipation of getting to come in contact with something solid.

Clearing out other ideas, he focused on the thoughts of what it’d feel like as soon as his fingertips came in contact with the plastic; what it would feel like as the small object rolled ever so slightly across the countertop. What sound it would make, and how the pen’s shadow would trail along with it.

All of J.D.’s thoughts were filled with the way he would move that pen.

And when he again reached forwards to poke it, it moved.

It traveled only an inch, barely making any distance, but it had _moved_.

J.D., a ghost, a dead man, had actually been able to move a solid object from the living world.

As he withdrew his hand, some sort of strange energy seemed to be coursing through his fingertips. It had been absolutely peculiar to have been able to move something so simple and actually solid again. That he, a lifeless being, could move something physical.

J.D. brought his head up to search the room.

No one had seen the pen move.

That was expected, as everyone around the hospital was always focused on whatever tasks they had thrown left and right at them.

_Maybe I can find something close to someone so they really can see it._

After scanning the nurses station again, J.D. decided to move on. Everybody around the station was too busy. How would they notice something so small moving on it’s own around all of the hustle?

He began to wander away from the nurses station and past the many patient rooms.

It felt nice to walk down the hallway like it were any other day of work; as if J.D. were back to being a doctor, and not at all dead and a ghost.

Eventually, along the corridor, he found the perfect candidate.

_The Janitor._

The Janitor had spent so much time torturing J.D., so now was the dead man’s chance to mess with him, instead, and be able to get away with it with absolutely no repercussions. 

_Prepare to be spooked, Janitor._

But as J.D. crept towards the Janitor in an attempt-to-be-scary-but-not-actually-scary-considering-it’s-J.D.-way, he froze.

The Janitor seemed... sad.

It was odd.

The way he scrubbed his mop left and right across the grimy hospital floor was definitely deprived of it’s usual vigor; instead, he was moving it back and forth in a slow, somber way. It was tired seeming, and just... depressed.

J.D. looked up to see the Janitor’s face, and it held the same mood as his movements. He had his lips set in a frown, and his eyes just seemed hollow. They didn’t hold that same mischievous light that they always carried. J.D. found himself... missing it. The Janitor was supposed to stay his same ornery self, not this tired looking janitor who was slowly mopping the same spot on the ground.

Suddenly, J.D. realized something.

Did the Janitor actually _miss_ him? Was that what was happening?

J.D. had always seen himself and the Janitor as rivals. He had always thought that the Janitor had completely hated his guts, but was there something beyond that?

Maybe, deep in the Janitor’s heart, he really had cared for little Scooter. Maybe he enjoyed getting to pick on J.D. because he just saw it as harmless fun.

J.D. had been the only one the Janitor had picked on so relentlessly, so without J.D., the Janitor didn’t have anybody like that. It had been something oddly special between the two of them.

So, as J.D. watched the Janitor and his slow, dark movements, he couldn’t help but miss him.

They had, perhaps, cared for each other in an obscure way, and J.D. missed that. He missed the Janitor’s weird shenanigans, and he missed his little schemes to torture him, strangely.

J.D. realized then that he didn’t want to move anything to scare the Janitor, but maybe he could do it to cheer him up; because right then, J.D. just saw the Janitor as someone who was suffering, and he wanted to do anything he could to help that somebody.

Spotting the spray-bottle of ammonia sitting on the Janitor’s cart beside him, J.D. got an idea.

Again, he thought about actually moving the solid object and nothing else. It took him a few tries to be able to touch the bottle, but that was because it was heavier than a pen.

When he did touch it, though, he was able to get it to unbalance and fall onto the ground with a loud sound.

The Janitor’s head perked up at the sudden noise, and he glanced down at the source of it. Noticing the fallen bottle, he bent down to pick it up.

When he got a good look at what it was, a bittersweet smile spread across the Janitor’s face, and J.D. knew that his plan had worked.

During J.D.’s first year there as an intern, the Janitor had repeatedly accused J.D. of stealing something off of his cart. J.D. had later learned that it had been that same old bottle of ammonia.

And now, J.D. could tell that the Janitor remembered the exact same thing, because he wore an expression of nostalgia and sentimentality.

It made J.D. smile sadly, too.

And then, what the Janitor did next totally surprised J.D.

He let out a sigh and spoke.

“Cya, Scooter.”

J.D. gaped and blinked back a few tears.

They were two simple words, and yet they held so much meaning. The fact that the Janitor even remembered his little ammonia trick, and even said goodbye to J.D. was so heartwarming.

So the Janitor really _did_ miss J.D.

And J.D. missed him, too.

“Cya, Janitor. I’ll miss you,” J.D. replied to him.

Of course, the Janitor didn’t hear him, but some part of J.D. really wanted to believe that maybe the Janitor knew he was here in some way. Just maybe.

After wiping away the last of his small tears, J.D. moved past the Janitor and continued on down the hall.

_I can’t believe I really have made such an impact on everyone in this place._

J.D. felt a small feeling of happiness wash over him.

_At least I know I won’t be forgotten anytime soon._

J.D.’s aimless wandering eventually led him into the hospital’s main lobby. It was the same old chaotic room it had always been.

There were sick people all lined up in the chairs scattered around the room, most of them letting out violent coughs or sneezes. There were the same rowdy children running around with little-to-no parent supervision going on, and the same familiar doctors dashing around to check in on each and every one of the patients. There were the nurses, too, behind the front desk, most of them either looking through files or making phone calls.

Again, the familiarity soothed J.D., even though the room itself was an absolute madhouse.

Instinct wanted him to go up to one of the hacking people, but he knew that that wasn’t his purpose here anymore — actually, he didn’t really know what his real purpose was or why he was back here, but he did know that he couldn’t care for the sick anymore.

For a moment, he felt bad, but then he remembered he didn’t exactly ask to be hit and killed, did he?

Suddenly, J.D. jumped as a doctor walked right through him to get to a patient.

“Watch where you’re going!” The dead doctor yelped naturally.

_Whoops._

J.D. chuckled.

_You’re dead, J.D., remember that._

Shaking off the odd feeling of someone passing through _him_ for once, J.D. ambled over to the front desk.

Laverne was sat behind it, head bowed down in prayer before her Jesus statue that she loved to carry around and passive-aggressively stick in front of J.D. and Perry anytime the two of them just simply kissed or something.

J.D. could see her lips moving slightly, and was able to pick up a few words.

“Please take good care of Q-Tip...”

J.D. gave a mournful smile.

Even though he wasn’t exactly very religious, he was moved that Laverne was praying for him. It was nice to know that she was asking for the best for him.

Sighing, J.D. leaned forward to rest his elbows on the front desk. He brought his gaze all around the room.

He would miss that place. He had spent a large majority — actually, basically all of his time — in the hospital for the past couple of years, and it had basically become like home to him. After working there almost everyday, it was hard to believe that someday it would be taken away.

He was once able to help all of these sick people, but now he could only sit back and watch. It was cruel.

J.D. pushed himself off of the desk and left the bustling waiting room. He wanted to walk around the hospital and just remember his life. Maybe that would cheer him up.

But as J.D. plodded down the hospital halls that once felt like a strange home, grief only tugged at his heart again.

_I don’t wanna be dead._

**********

Street lamps lit up the sidewalk J.D. was strolling down with a pale golden glow, making the path he was taking easier to see. Long shadows were being cast down all around him, indicating the nighttime. The stars hung over his head in the sky, seemingly taunting him for still being trapped down there.

It was now the night after he had gone back to the hospital and seen everyone else. He had spent the entire night there, and then the entire next day.

He had spent today trailing behind several different doctors and interns to watch them care for patients. It almost made J.D. feel like it were any other day, and he were helping out, just like normal.

He had also followed the Janitor around for a while, and discovered that the Janitor hadn’t really done much.

J.D. thought that maybe, it was because the little tortuous pranks he liked to pulled were only fun when they were on J.D. It was heartwarming and slightly disturbing at the same time.

Next, he had gone back down to the morgue to hang out with his corpse. Even though he didn’t need it anymore, J.D. still felt an odd attachment to it.

_I lived in that thing for so long. I still don’t really want to leave it._

That night, however, he had returned to the morgue only to discover that his body was gone. He assumed that it had been taken away to a funeral home to be prepped or something.

He almost felt an odd sort of anxiety now that he didn’t know where his body was.

He had to leave it, though. He wanted to check back in with Turk and Carla to make sure they were okay — well, physically okay — so that was exactly where he was headed now.

Finally reaching their apartment building, J.D. ran up the stairs and down the hallway he had, just yesterday, fallen through for fun.

When he arrived at their door, he simply sauntered right through it.

“Honey, I’m home!” He shouted as he entered. At least he could still amuse himself.

Spotting Turk on the couch, J.D. ran over to his best friend.

Turk looked like he still hadn’t moved _at all_ since J.D. last saw him. He was still wearing the exact same clothes he had been when learning the news of J.D.’s death, and he certainly didn’t look like he had showered. There was a plate of leftover chicken sitting on the coffee-table that only had a few bites taken from it, and the TV was left on some strange Spanish soap opera that clearly wasn’t being watched by the unmoving man on the couch.

However, Turk’s face wasn’t left in the same petrified, stone-still, shocked face it had been in; it was now in one that was stuck in a state of misery. Although his eyes were pointed towards the television, Turk had a glassy sheen covering them, clearly not focused on anything. They looked sunken-in, red, and swollen.

J.D. decided to take a seat next to him.

“Hey, buddy,” J.D. greeted as if this were any other day. “How you doing?”

No response.

“Guess not good if you’re not talking,” J.D. said, ending with his familiar chuckle he always did after he told jokes.

It died quickly, though.

“I miss you, Chocolate Bear,” J.D. tried to tell Turk, voice now slightly choked up, shoulders slumping uncharacteristically.

Suddenly, Carla’s voice came from the other room, albeit hushed. J.D. whipped his head in the direction of the sound, listening intently.

“Perry, I know it’s difficult, but I need your help in this. I can’t do it alone, and you of all people need a say in this.”

J.D. cocked his head to the side slightly. What did she need of Perry?

Curious now, J.D. heaved himself off of the couch, away from Turk’s side, and padded over to the closed bedroom door. He put his ear to it, then cursed himself quietly when he remembered his current state.

He poked his head through the door to see Carla sitting on the bed, phone to her ear, clear pain showing in her eyes.

“Perry, can you _please_ put the drink down for a second?”

J.D. heard Perry’s gruff voice sound from the phone, although he couldn’t make out any words. Perry certainly sounded drunk as all hell, though.

“Perry, I want you to make some of these decisions. It’s for J.D,” Carla urged.

There was a silence on the other end.

Then, Perry’s voice spoke, low and mournful. His words were still inaudible, unfortunately.

Like a shadow, sadness seemed to darken Carla’s face.

“It’s his _funeral_ , Perry. I know how hard this is for you — trust me — but don’t you think he’d want you to plan some of it for him?”

J.D. took a step back as if he’d been slapped, his eyes stretching wide to display his star-filled, ocean-blue gaze.

He’d completely forgotten about his funeral. He’d have to have that, of course.

My _funeral. They’re planning_ my _funeral._

Now _that_ was pretty unbelievable to him.

His own funeral was something he never thought he’d have to watch — then again, dying so suddenly and becoming a ghost was never on his agenda, so was this really out of the norm right now? — or even have planned so soon.

But still, it was strange. Was his own “celebration of life” really something he wanted to watch? Was he sure he wanted to witness his own body, stuck in a casket, be lowered down into the cold, lonely ground while his family and loved ones watched in complete and utter sorrow?

Not exactly.

However, J.D. knew the urge to follow his friends and partner around would make him give in, and he’d be forced — by himself — to accompany them. Plus, he was extremely curious to see how his own funeral would play out. He was only human.

Growing bored with Carla’s attempts to convince his bereaved — and, frankly, quite drunk out of his mind — partner, J.D. slowly backed out of the door.

As he turned on his heel, J.D. was shocked to see Turk gently arising from his thought-to-be-permanent spot on the couch.

J.D. watched and listened as his best friend stood up, Turk’s joints cracking from disuse, his muscles clearly aching from remaining still for so long.

Turk began to drag himself, painstakingly taking each step, over to J.D.’s old bedroom.

Blinking in confusion, J.D. followed him through the doorway and into his vacant room.

There wasn’t much left in there, as J.D. had moved out about a year and a half ago to live with Perry. His old bed and mattress were still left in there, however, and a shelf with a couple of old knickknacks J.D. had left were still occupying the room.

Although it hadn’t had J.D. inhabiting it in a long time, the old bedroom still held the strong memory of the man.

Turk seemed to realize this, too, as he had sat down and settled himself against the wall, longingly bringing his gaze to rest on the different objects in the room.

J.D. copied him, sitting down right next to the grieving surgeon and eyeing the familiar place.

“Hey, man,” Turk suddenly spoke up.

J.D.’s head shot up and swung over to stare at Turk.

_Did he just talk to me?! Does he see me? Does he know I’m here?!_

But as J.D. continued to burn his gaze into Turk, he realized that the other man had absolutely no clue that the ghostly remain of his best friend was sitting right next to him.

Turk just thought that maybe somehow, trying to contact J.D. in a place that still so strongly held his presence would allow for J.D. to hear him.

And he was right.

“Y’know, Rowdy’s gonna miss you. I don’t know how I’ll explain this to him,” Turk joked, the sadness in his eyes mixing with something J.D. definitely preferred: it was nostalgia, longing, but most of all great joy in remembering his lost friend.

Although the pain in Turk’s heart was immense right now, the feeling of talking to his best friend helped to ease it. Some people might have found it strange for Turk to be joking so soon after J.D.’s death, but that was just how Turk worked. On Turk’s bad days, the games and pranks he and J.D. got up to were sometimes the only things to make Turk feel better, so it made sense for him to joke with what he thought was J.D.’s presence. It was completely appropriate, in J.D.’s eyes. People dealt with death in all kinds of ways.

“Remember back in college when you were a total dork, man? You never really changed, you know,” Turk said, grinning mischievously now.

“Yeah, man, and you had to teach me how to be cool. You’re still the same goof-ball, as well,” J.D. grinned.

Although he knew that Turk couldn’t hear him, it really felt like they were speaking to each other. It helped him to forget his loneliness in that wonderful moment.

And maybe, just maybe, Turk really did feel J.D.’s presence. They just had that closeness.

And so, the two of them continued to “talk” for what felt to J.D. like a blissful forever. It mostly consisted of Turk reminiscing about something in J.D.’s life, be it funny memories, accomplishments in J.D.’s life, or just general conversation they would hold on any normal day.

J.D. would respond to all of it.

Eventually, though, while in the middle of retelling the story of when they got Rowdy, Turk was interrupted by Carla.

“Turk? Where are you?” She called from the other room.

The surgeon sat up quickly and poked his head out the door.

“Back here.”

J.D. watched from the doorway as Carla blinked at Turk sympathetically.

“It’s getting late, are you coming to bed?”

“Yeah, just give me a minute, baby.”

When Carla turned around and padded back into her and Turk’s room, Turk turned back around to look into J.D.’s old bedroom one last time.

Before turning off the light switch and bathing the room in darkness once again, before closing the door to the empty room, Turk spoke with an actual smile on his face.

“Goodnight, J.D.”


	5. Chapter 5

The sound of thousands of clustered leaves all blowing and crashing in the soft breeze filled J.D.’s ears. Their shadows dappled the grass and stone, bathing them in spotted darkness. Large leaves ranging from shades of red, orange, and brown littered the ground. 

The massive oak trees that towered over J.D.’s head all creaked and groaned against the wind, and from far off, a lonely bird sang out a melancholy tune. The sky was a pretty shade of blue, with occasional clouds mottling against the brilliant color.

It was a beautiful day.

However, J.D. wasn’t able to appreciate the morning’s magnificence; he felt like a day like this should he rainy, dark, and dreary. There should be large, gloomy puddles forming on the ground, along with dull, gray clouds hovering ominously in the sky.

Breathing in the pleasant scent of dew-dappled leaves and freshly-cut grass, J.D. took in the sights of the familiar place around him.

The cemetery.

J.D. had gone there often in his lifetime to accompany Perry when he visited Ben’s grave, so he remembered the place quite well. 

Some people always had found cemeteries to be creepy or eerie, but J.D. always saw them as a beautiful place of resting, a place of peace and quiet for those who have departed.

A place where he, himself, was about to be buried.

Standing to the side of many neatly placed rows of folding chairs, J.D. turned his head to see his friends and family all lined up on them.

They were there for his funeral.

Everyone, including J.D., were all watching the funeral celebrant give his speech about J.D.’s life — his eulogy. J.D. was only half listening; he mostly had his attention set on his friends.

Turk had slipped back into the strange funk he had first entered when he had been told that J.D. had died. He stared ahead with an emotionless expression on his face, eyes fogged over like they had been, eyebrows furrowed together slightly.

Carla was leaning against Turk and crying into his shoulder. She had worked hard to plan his funeral, and J.D. had stayed with her for the sleepless nights she had stayed up for doing so. J.D. recalled how she had remained strong while organizing everything they needed, and now, she finally got to mourn him properly.

Elliot was sat next to Carla, observing the speech. Tears silently ran down her face, and occasionally, she’d pull a tissue out of her pocket and blow her nose or wipe the tears trailing down her cheek. J.D. had gone to visit her once before the funeral, and that had basically consisted of her sobbing loudly on the couch while J.D. tried to move anything he possibly could in her apartment to snap her out of it. She hadn’t payed attention to any of it.

Perry was sitting beside Elliot on the edge of the row, with only an empty seat to his other side. He was staring blankly ahead with silent and angry tears streaming down his face to land on the grass. He looked very similar to how he did during Ben’s funeral: stock-still, all except for his chest, which was hitching up and down to desperately gasp for air — something he was really struggling to catch.

J.D. had also gone to visit Perry before the funeral several times, and he had done nothing but drink in unhealthy amounts and then collapse into a sweaty, crying, half-awake-half-asleep heap. At one point, Carla — a complete hero — had gone over to his apartment to give him a casserole. Even though Carla herself was in pain, she had taken the time to make him one and bring it over there to make sure he was actually eating. J.D. had never loved her more. Leave it up to Carla to still mother Perry.

While she was there, Carla had forced Perry to eat at least a generous portion of the casserole, because J.D. was pretty sure that Perry hadn’t been eating anything at all. J.D. was so entirely grateful for her.

Watching all of his friends, J.D. felt a pang of grief. He had never felt so lonely. They were all so close to him, and yet he couldn’t interact with them in the slightest. All he could do was move small objects around them that they were all too bereaved to notice. He hated it so much.

He despised seeing them all dressed in black, sitting in a row and crying over his death, all while he couldn’t do anything to comfort them.

J.D. crept forwards and sat down in the vacant seat next to Perry, eyes and ears now focused on the funeral celebrant.

_How weird is it that I’m here at my own funeral?_

J.D. listened as the man told everyone some fond stories of him that Carla, Turk, and J.D.’s mother had requested him to apprise.

As the funeral celebrant began to talk about J.D.’s first day at Sacred Heart, the place where he would meet the greatest people he had ever known, J.D. heard Perry start to gasp even harder for breath.

The ghost turned his head to see aggressive tears now flowing from Perry’s eyes steadily.

J.D.’s first day at the hospital had definitely been one of the most memorable days of his life, and for Perry, too, as they had both met each other for the first time — the loves of each other’s lives.

And J.D. knew that that was why Perry started to cry even harder. He was remembering it all: their first interaction, their growing bond over time, how J.D. had first confessed to Perry that he had feelings for him, how they had first drunkenly slept together, how they had both decided to begin a real relationship, and how they had both first said “I love you” to each other.

All of it. J.D. knew that Perry was remembering all of it, because he was, too.

And in that moment, every single tiny little star inside of J.D.’s spirit was screaming at him to reach out and just simply feel Perry again. He wanted to touch him, he wanted to comfort him, he just wanted to be with him in any sort of way.

And when J.D.’s instincts gave in, he stretched his arm right up to Perry’s shoulder.

Memories of Ben’s funeral came flooding back to J.D. of how he had rested his hand on the exact same shoulder, and how the older man had gratefully accepted that small gesture of help.

Now, it was once again time for J.D. to give that exact same comfort, even if it felt different in every way possible.

When J.D.’s hand finally came to rest on Perry’s shoulder, he _felt it._

His hand felt almost solid again, and it actually remained clutching the shoulder of his partner.

J.D. could feel the fabric of Perry’s jet-black suit, he could feel the warmth radiating off of him, the blood flowing beneath his skin. He could feel the muscles under the suit twitching ever so slightly as Perry tried to hold back his tears, and he could feel the bone structures hiding beneath it all.

J.D. could _feel him._

He could feel his partner, the man he loved. He was actually in some sort of contact with him after so many desperate and agonizing attempts just to be with him in some way.

And J.D. was pretty sure Perry could feel him, too.

Perry’s eyes flickered faintly, seeming to glow with some strange light; his tears stopped abruptly, and his mouth moved to gape slightly. His shoulder muscles tensed up, definitely responding to the ghostly hand resting on his very solid shoulder.

But most of all, he looked peaceful.

Like he just knew with every fiber of his being that his partner had returned to be with him, and that it most definitely was the man he loved who was by his side in that time of grieving, giving him the same comfort he had given before. 

J.D. could feel the energy flowing between the two of them, and he knew that it helped Perry. Even just slightly.

Eventually, the celebrant stopped speaking, breaking J.D. out of the trance he had been in while finally feeling Perry again — a state in which he felt like lasted forever.

He noticed that everyone in the crowd began to stand, so, instinctually, he did too.

When he was on his feet, he started to look around at everyone else there for his funeral. He picked a few out of the crowd.

Way in the back, he saw the Janitor. He was standing far back, almost unnoticeable. He had an unreadable expression on his face, although it certainty wasn’t a happy one.

Dr. Kelso was there too, baring a stoic expression on his face.

Next to Turk and Carla sat Dan and J.D.’s mom. His mom had been crying the entire time, while Dan had just stared ahead blankly, obviously still in shock. J.D. knew, however, that when Dan got home that night, he’d go straight into the bathtub. Unfortunately, this time, Perry wouldn’t be there to drag him out, so Dan would probably _actually_ disintegrate into the mix of beer-urine-water this time. 

A wave of grief washed over J.D., threatening to wash him off his feet.

There was only half of his family left, now.

First his father had died, and now J.D. himself.

It was only his mom and Dan left.

J.D. sighed. He had never felt so bad for his mother.

_She shouldn’t of had to lose me when I was so young._

J.D. almost found it funny that instead of feeling bad for himself — for, you know, _dying_ — he felt bad for his mother for losing him.

Drawing his attention away from his rapidly dwindling family, J.D. realized that everyone was beginning to stand up. The ceremony was over. 

Some people were slowly walking away towards the exit of the cemetery and to their cars, while some began to head towards the grave. Perry, of course, was trudging over to J.D.’s casket.

As J.D. followed Perry right at his side by pure instinct, memories swarmed through his head.

If this were any other time, Perry would’ve made fun of J.D. for practically sticking to his side just like a dog.

But those days were gone.

Now, instead of having his partner trail beside him, Perry was walking towards J.D.’s freaking _casket._ That wasn’t right.

_I still feel like none of this should be happening._

But all of it was as real as it got.

Perry was, in fact, paused in front of the grave of his dead lover, staring at his enclosed body which was about to be lowered into the cold ground forever.

He was just glaring at it in disbelief.

Perry never thought that he’d have to be in this position, standing before J.D.’s coffin. Never.

But now, here he was. It was cruel, really.

J.D. knew that Perry was feeling like his heart had just been ripped away right from his chest, and that as soon as he got home and out of that suit, he’d break down and enter his same destructive drinking and trance-like state.

J.D. could see the agony clear on his face. He so badly just wanted to be able to let Perry know that he was okay — well, as okay as ghosts got.

Here, being a spirit, J.D. was at least able to see Perry. But for the other man, J.D. was gone entirely, completely taken away from him.

One moment, Perry had had someone to spend his life with in pure, loving joy. They had a future. But now, it was all gone. There was no way to get him back.

And now Perry was alone.

As J.D. tried — and failed — to touch Perry’s shoulder again, he heard someone approach them.

“Perry...?”

It was Carla.

Perry didn’t even flinch; he didn’t even turn to look at her. He just continued to stare at the casket as if looking at it long and hard enough would bring J.D. back.

He just simply replied with a “Huh...?” that honestly sounded completely dead inside.

“Are you almost ready to come to the reception now?” Carla asked softly. If a voice could sound like it were stepping lightly to avoid broken glass, it would be Carla’s right then.

Perry, eyes still clouded over and dead inside, flickered them ever so slightly to the side towards Carla behind him.

“In a minute.”

He turned back towards the casket, still deep in contemplation.

Suddenly, he spoke again.

“Say, Carla? Could you do me a favor?” He asked hoarsely.

Surprise showed clear on Carla’s face, but she still remained sympathetic.

“Of course, Perry. Anything.”

“Carla, I... I want you to cherish every single moment you share with Gandhi. When you’re with him, I want you to just simply live in that moment. Just be with the man you love. Carry on what I lost.”

Carla’s eyes widened and her jaw dropped open somewhat, but understanding was clear in her gaze.

“Perry, I... of course.”

Perry’s eyes once again turned back to the grave.

“Right, then,” he spoke in that weak voice. “Head over to the reception. I’ll meet you there in a minute.”

Carla dipped her head and said no more. Spotting Turk standing near the exit, pain and grief stuck clear on his face, Carla trudged over to him with heavy footsteps, leaving only Perry behind.

When J.D. turned his attention back to his partner, he didn’t even realize that tears were streaming down his own face due to Perry’s latest request.

That had been hauntingly beautiful.

J.D., by impulse, took a step towards Perry and rested his head against his shoulder. For a moment, he almost felt like he were back. Like things were normal, and he and Perry weren’t really separated by such a powerful force.

J.D. could feel Perry’s familiar build underneath his suit, and he could faintly pick up the scent of the soap Perry used, a smell that J.D. had become to accustomed to over the years; it had become a comforting aroma.

He could sense the warmth radiating off of Perry, and could feel the way his chest gently rose and fell with each aching breath.

In that blissful moment, J.D. almost felt like he were home again.

But that peaceful illusion came shattering down around him when Perry pulled away, taking a few tentative steps away from the casket.

When he turned around slightly to glance at the casket one last time, his eyes contained fire.

J.D. knew that it was because he was blaming the entire world right now. He blamed it all for taking away his partner, the man he loved more than anything.

It was a frightening look that J.D. hated to see on the other man’s face.

But then Perry’s eyes softened for a moment.

“Bye, Newbie.”

J.D. watched as Perry trudged away with heavy footsteps and headed towards the cemetery entrance, leaving behind the body of J.D.

Instead of following him, J.D. decided to stay behind and watch his casket get buried.

He sat down on the gently blowing grass, idly watching the world go by.

He observed as some workers came by to collect the folding chairs and the pictures of him set out — probably to be brought to his friends and family. He noticed a few people enter the cemetery far away to visit lost loved ones, each holding something like flowers in their hands.

At one point J.D. laid down on his back to watch the clouds roll by.

The wind softly blew past him in the breeze, ruffling the cleanly-cut grass around him. A few birds flew overhead, calling out songs of joy or mourning, and the occasional ring of a wind chime from far off sounded peacefully through the air.

It was all so very relaxing to J.D.

Suddenly, the words of Mrs. Tanner, one of his favorites patients from his early days as in intern, popped into his head.

_”How many times have you sat in the grass and done nothing?”_

_I hope she knows that even in the afterlife, I’m still following her advice._

He missed her.

J.D. couldn’t help but remember how she had told him she was ready to die, and how scared he had been.

Back then, as a new intern, he had been absolutely terrified of death. Now, he felt like his own death hadn’t actually been all that scary. Sure, when he thought about the fact that he really was dead and couldn’t be with those he loved, it made him depressed, but it wasn’t really _scary_.

Dying had felt like going to the doctor as a kid and getting a shot. It was terrifying at first, and was imagined to be equal to the pain of being stabbed multiple times, but when actually receiving it? It felt like nothing more than a little poke.

Of course, in the brief moment after being hit by the car where he had felt it, it had been horrifyingly painful, yes, but now? It was all over, and he was a ghost.

It hadn’t been some big dramatic thing; one moment he had been alive, and the next, he, well... hadn’t.

Deciding that that made sense, J.D. closed his eyes and allowed the breeze to lightly stir his ghostly hair.

Lying there, he let his mind wonder about other people he knew who had died.

Had Ben became a ghost like he had? Did he have to come back to sit and watch everyone mourn his death, or had he gone straight to wherever people went next?

Maybe there was a reason J.D. had stayed behind. Maybe, like in fiction, he became a ghost because he wasn’t truly ready to move on. It was true, he absolutely didn’t want to be deceased.

_So maybe that’s why I’m here. I don’t want to leave everybody behind._

So had Mrs. Tanner moved on? Surely she had; she had explicitly told J.D. that she was ready to die.

J.D. screwed up his face and sighed.

This was all too complicated and stressful. Wasn’t the afterlife supposed to be a time of rest?

_Of course it isn’t if I don’t even_ want _to be dead._

J.D., much like a cat, rolled over onto his stomach to allow the sun to warm up his back.

_Whatever. I’m gonna rest now while I can._

If ghosts could sleep, J.D. was pretty sure he would have right there. Lying there with the breeze and the sound of leaves rustling in the wind, _plus_ the pleasing heat from the sun was certainly the most comforting thing he had felt in the last few days.

_Trying to get your disarrayed friends and loved ones to notice you when you’re a ghost is hard._

J.D. stretched his jaw in a yawn as he rolled over onto his back once more, his rolled up scrubs exposing the soft flesh of his belly to the sun yet again.

When he opened his drowsy eyes, he noticed that a few of the workers there were beginning to bury his casket.

Blinking the fog away from his eyes, he sat up to watch the full process.

_Never thought I’d have to watch my own burial, huh?_

When all was said and done and they began to cover the casket up with dirt, J.D. completely stood up on his feet.

He ambled over to his about-to-be-covered-up casket and stared down into the grave.

_There I go. My final resting place; the dark hole where I’ll forever be trapped, never again to see the light of day._

J.D. gave an innocent wave to his casket.

“Bye, body,” he called.

He sat down on the grass again, cross-legged, to watch the end of the burial process.

It was quite interesting, to say the least.

After the workers maneuvered all of the soil to cover him up, they wiped the dirt from their hands and proceeded to trudge away. Another job well done.

Turning his attention away from them, J.D. whipped his head around to stare at the now-smoothed-over, bare patch on the ground.

“Sucks to be trapped down there, huh?” He joked, ending with his familiar chuckle.

When he thought about it, wasn’t he, the spirit, still trapped in the world of the living?

J.D. shook out his head to clear his thoughts.

_Enough with the deep questions! I wanna go home, now._

So, J.D. hauled himself off of the ground and began to head for the building where the reception was being held. The place he would have to wait to get a ride back home.

_Ah, the wonders of being a ghost._

***********

Another sip.

And another.

Another finished glass, and another new one clumsily poured by intoxicated hands.

And another glass of scotch quickly downed.

The fumes of nothing but alcohol and sweat emitting from Perry was nauseating, even to J.D.’s worsened sense of smell.

That morning had been J.D.’s funeral, and after he had watched his own burial, J.D. had gone to the reception.

It had been... as expected.

It had been a room filled with his friends and family, each dressed in a somber shade of black, all either mourning in silence or crying.

Afterwards, J.D. had ridden with Perry back to their apartment, where the older man had promptly taken his suit-jacket and tie off to throw them into the corner. He had then collapsed on the couch where he was now drowning himself in scotch. J.D. honestly wasn’t sure what glass he was on; he had lost count.

When J.D. and Perry had gotten together, Perry’s horrible drinking habits had gone down immensely. But now, it grieved J.D. to know that Perry would probably return to the same binge-drinking state for a long time.

J.D. was sitting on the couch at Perry’s feet — Perry hadn’t even bothered to remove his shoes — and intently watching his every move.

It was, sadly, the only thing J.D. could do in that moment.

Back when he was alive, when Perry would be having a bad day, J.D.’s method of comfort for him would be silently sitting next to him. Perry would be collapsed on the couch or bed, and J.D. would just simply be near him to let Perry feel his presence. He would sit there for as long as he needed to until Perry was ready to talk and be touched. When Perry was ready, J.D. would curl up around him and allow the older man to rant about whatever was going on, be it a bad day at work or a despondent episode.

That was how they had operated, and it had always worked.

But now, Perry couldn’t feel J.D.’s presence, and he sure as hell couldn’t have J.D. curl around him and gratefully allow Perry to vent. All J.D. could do was sit next to him and hope with everything he had that somehow, Perry would know he was there.

Unfortunately, right now, Perry was completely out of it. J.D. was pretty sure that there was so much alcohol in Perry’s system right now that if spoken too, Perry wouldn’t be able to hear or understand a thing.

J.D. sighed.

“I’m trying, Perry. I’m trying so hard to help you, but I _can’t_.”

No response.

It made J.D. want to scream. It made him want to scream until his throat ached, until his lungs burned, and until his ears bled from the sheer power of his torture-filled cry.

But sitting there, J.D. forced himself to stay calm, and he distracted himself by thinking about his life.

Had he been happy with it?

When he truly cleared all other thoughts to reflect on his own question, he realized that it was a simple answer.

Yes.

He had been happy with it all.

Sure, it had been cut way shorter than he would’ve preferred, but it sure as hell had been filled with joy.

He had gotten to achieve his dream of becoming a doctor, his dream of getting to help people. He had gotten to make an actual, real impact on people. He had gotten to meet the most amazing people he had ever had to pleasure to know, like Turk, his absolute best friend ever. And Carla, such a caring, compassionate person who had been like a mother to him. And Elliot, such a wonderful friend, and even like a sister to him.

That made for a truly excellent life to him.

And what tied it all together, of course, was that he had gotten to meet someone who was willing to stick by his side through all of the good and bad times no matter what. Someone who cared for him above all else; someone who was able to truly understand every part of him, and loved him for all of his odd quirks. Someone he had known true intimacy with, someone he had just simply _loved._

Perry.

It amazed J.D. that even in his shorter lifetime, he had met Perry, and he had gotten to spend it with him. Perry was one of a kind, and the fact that J.D. had gotten to love him and spend his life with him was totally mesmerizing to him.

And it was astonishing to J.D. that he had been able to provide that to Perry, as well.

And although J.D. was constantly torn up over the fact that he wouldn’t get to continue the wonderful life he had, he knew that he really had been happy with it all.

J.D. leaned back and eyed Perry longingly.

“Thank you, Perry. Thank you for... well... _everything._ ”

He closed his eyes.

God, how strange was it that just getting to be with Perry, something J.D. had done every single day, was now taken away from him? Even the small, simple things, like brushing their teeth together in the mornings, curling up together to sleep, contentedly listening to Perry snore when J.D. would wake up before him, or getting to work side by side at the hospital as the ultimate doctor force were now things J.D. would give anything to have back again.

J.D. slowly opened his eyes again. He was back to gazing at Perry in despair.

He wanted it all back. Even if he only got it all back for a minute, he’d be happy. He just wanted Perry again.

“I love you.”

Back then, J.D. would’ve gotten an immediate, genuine response.

Now, he didn’t get anything.

J.D. had never felt so alone.


	6. Chapter 6

“Hey, Turk! Watch this!” J.D. shouted energetically.

He proceeded to jump from the Janitor’s cart that was residing in the hallway and onto the nurses station counter.

As his feet landed on the counter, they slid on the slippery surface, and J.D. ended up tumbling right off of it in a clumsy heap.

When he landed on the ground with a yelp, he quickly threw himself back up onto his feet — and without a single bruise.

“Wasn’t that awesome?” He asked breathlessly.

Turk, who was standing behind the counter and reading a chart with dead, empty eyes, didn’t budge.

J.D. chose to ignore that, however.

He had learned that he was now completely alone, and would have to make his own fun from then on. He was beginning to ignore the pain in his heart every time someone didn’t respond to him, and instead just spoke to them like normal and acted like everything was fine.

That was healthy, right?

_Doesn’t matter. I’m dead._

A week ago had been his funeral, and ever since, he had mostly been hanging out at the hospital.

Turk, Carla, and Elliot had all returned to work a few days ago, however Dr. Kelso had given Perry a couple more days off due to the fact that all Perry did lately was drink, and they sure as hell didn’t want to risk him coming in drunk. And he seemed to be spiraling into an even worse, completely grief-stricken state, and Dr. Kelso pitied him.

He was returning today, however. He had been away for too long.

J.D. almost felt excited about it; he thought that maybe bringing Perry back to the familiar environment of the hospital would be able to take his mind off of things, and it meant that he would no longer spend his days lying on the couch and binge-drinking. J.D. just wanted Perry to be even remotely happy again.

He was supposed to arrive sometime that morning, so J.D. had been waiting patiently all day.

Shoving his thoughts away, J.D. once again tried to jump from the counter and onto the Janitor’s cart. This time, he stuck the landing.

Since the funeral, J.D. had been completely adapting to his abilities. He was able to go through solid objects and walls without even thinking, and was able to interact with them whenever he pleased. Moving objects was even way easier. He loved getting to knock things over or just slightly move something; it always freaked people out.

He still found that actually touching people was quite difficult, however. He had done it on three accounts, now. The first two had been at his funeral on Perry, and the other time had been a few days ago when he touched Turk on the arm. It was after Turk had had an especially rough day at the hospital, and he was sitting on the break-room couch, completely broken inside. J.D. had sat next to him and lightly grasped his arm. It seemed to comfort Turk like it had Perry.

That made J.D. realize that there was a pattern; he was only able to touch people when he was feeling incredibly emotional and desperate, or in deep emotional conflict.

_Guess it takes a lot of power or something._

Now sitting on the Janitor’s cart and spreading his arms wide as the Janitor pushed it down the hall, J.D. had also realized something strange.

Each new day, J.D. had noticed that his spirit almost seemed to be... fading.

When he first died, J.D.’s spirit had been bright, glowing, and filled with a thousand tiny stars. But now it looked duller. Instead of having his bright, white glow, he emitted a pale, sickly-gray light, and he seemed to be even more transparent than before, and a few of the little stars inside of him had blinked out and died.

J.D. just hoped that didn’t mean anything bad.

He turned his attention back to his cart ride.

Since he only had himself, he had to entertain himself with his own odd little games around the hospital.

He loved getting to jump from appliance to appliance since he couldn’t risk injury. He also enjoyed moving things around to confuse people, riding around on the Janitor’s cart, and dashing down the hospital halls like a madman. He had endless energy, and running like his afterlife depended on it made him feel almost alive again.

Suddenly spotting Elliot marching down the hallway, J.D. sprung off of the cart and tumbled onto the floor.

He leapt to his feet and began to follow her.

She had her head buried in a chart, eyes focused — yet they still held the same sadness everyone’s eyes seemed to hold constantly.

“Off to see a patient?” J.D. asked, now walking besides her.

He ignored the silence.

Elliot marched on, eyes downcast and empty. It made J.D. feel depressed again.

He really missed the old Elliot; she never dove into anymore of her long, neurotic, slightly amusing stories anymore. She was now always quiet, moody, and irritable — ready to snap at anybody if they just so much as looked at her funny. And when all was said and done she would go home and cry on the couch long into the night. It wasn’t Elliot.

J.D. remembered how she had always been more like a sister to him; the two of them had tried dating when they were both new interns, but it didn’t last long when Elliot realized that most of J.D.’s attention wasn’t set on her, but on his grumpy, curly-haired mentor. She had been the one to convince J.D. to go ask Perry out. J.D. had always thanked her constantly for that.

At the thought of Perry, J.D. stopped to gaze at the clock hanging on the wall above the nurses station.

9:57 AM.

_It’s almost time for Perry to get here!_

J.D. swiftly turned on his heels to begin excitedly sprinting down the hallway.

“Bye, Elliot!” He called, panting.

He raced down the hall as fast as he could, passing through a few people along the way. He loved having endless energy. Eventually he came to a screeching halt in the lobby.

He was right on time.

As soon as his feet were firmly planted on the ground, the front doors opened to reveal Perry, angrily shoving them open.

The first thing J.D. noticed was the horrible state his partner was in. Perry’s curls were grown out, unkempt, and disheveled, sticking out in odd directions. He also had a scruffy beard growing in, a clear sign he wasn’t taking care of himself. Large bags hung from under his eyes, adding to the sheer emptiness and general dead look in his eyes. Anger was shown clear in the way his eyebrows furrowed together.

Each step Perry took was heavy and aggressive, and all of his movements seemed tired and exhausted.

And what made J.D. visibly cringe was the way he still reeked of alcohol. It wasn’t that he was drunk now — J.D. could tell he wasn’t — it was that he obviously hadn’t showered, slept, or done anything to properly care for himself; he also seemed to have lost a ton of weight due to the fact that he wasn’t eating. His previously powerful muscles were now deteriorated and unused.

He looked like hell.

Perry strode into the lobby with the elegance of a furious bull and stopped at the counter to scribble something down on a clipboard. Laverne, who was sat behind it, gazed up at him.

“Dr. Cox, it’s nice to have you back.”

In response, Perry grumbled out something unintelligible.

Laverne continued to try and converse with him, her eyes remaining soft.

“I’m very sorry for your loss — Q-tip was a fine young doctor.”

Perry glanced up from his writing.

“You’re damn right he is,” he spat.

J.D. flinched at the use of the word ‘is’.

Laverne now looked mildly annoyed, but she kept on a nice face for the clearly grieving man.

“Right,” she simply responded. “Well, I hope you have a blessed day.”

Perry huffed and began to storm away from the counter, but not before growling, “Right, because God has just been _so_ kind to me lately.”

Laverne stared after him as he went, irritation now taking over most of her expression.

J.D. turned away from her to follow his partner down the hallway.

When he caught up, J.D. noticed that only hard anger edged Perry’s face. It was a hatred for the world and for everyone else, a pure burning despise aimed towards everything.

“Hey, Dr. Cox!” A voice suddenly called.

Both J.D. and Perry turned around to see one of the new interns dashing towards them both — or what the intern thought was only Dr. Cox.

“Hey, it’s nice to have you back!” He began, slightly out of breath. A frown took over his face. “I’m really sorry about Dr. Dorian-“

“Save it,” Perry snapped. “Now, what the hell brings you to come frantically chasing after me like this? It sure as hell can’t be that you just wanted to exchange pleasantries, because I’m pretty sure each and every one of you whimpering puppies only sees me as some sort of savior that’s only here to comfort you when one of your patients is mean to you and dies. Or — get this — when one of you can’t even perform the simplest of medical tasks in all the history of medical tasks, so you need me to hold your hand? So now what — just _what_ could be so damn important?”

Both J.D. and the intern visibly recoiled.

Perry had always had a short temper with the interns, that was true, but J.D. had never known him to lose it like this when the intern had barely even done anything. He was always willing to give them a shot.

Perry continued to glare daggers into the cowering young man.

The intern stumbled over his own words before replying, “Umm, it... it’s not important.”

Perry snorted.

“That’s what I thought.”

He turned on his heel and stormed away from the intern, who was still petrified on the spot.

J.D. gave him a sympathetic stare before hurrying after Perry again, this time eyeing him warily.

J.D. remembered how Carla had described Perry as being like a walking hurricane when he and Jordan divorced, so it was understandable that he would be the exact same way now.

Anything could set the older man off; even the kindest gestures could result in him blowing up in a fit of rage, and anything that slightly annoyed Perry would certainly be met on the receiving end of a truly malicious, rage-filled rant.

J.D. hated seeing him like that.

Shoulders now slouched, J.D. trailed beside Perry as they both walked into the ICU. As Perry stormed through, he scowled at the many doctors and patients crowding the room through his pain-clouded eyes.

Over at the nurses station, Carla noticed him walking towards her. She looked up.

“Hi, Perry.” She greeted him gently, like someone trying to calm a frightened animal.

Perry stopped in front of the counter to grab some patient charts. Annoyance still edged his gaze.

“Carla,” he mumbled while giving her a nod of acknowledgement. He stopped suddenly. “Why don’t I have as many patients as normal?”

Carla shrunk back slightly, wariness on her face.

“I had someone else take a few of them — I just thought that you’d need a little break-“

“A break?! Carla, I can manage fine on my own, thank _you_! In case you haven’t noticed, I’m perfectly _fine_!”

His dilapidated frame and large eye shadows begged to differ, but J.D. knew he was just trying to keep his usual bravado.

Carla, however, recoiled in pure fear.

“Uhh, Perry, I... well, I know, I just thought you might-“

“Might _what_ , Carla? What?!”

Perry was gripping the edges of the counter so hard his knuckles were turning white, and he was leaning towards Carla threateningly. Carla had shrunk back completely, pure terror in her eyes.

After what felt like a horrifying forever, Perry finally drew back with a depressed sign, realization dawning in his eyes.

“Carla, I-“

“No, no, I understand, Perry.”

“Carla-“

“It’s _fine_.”

Perry opened his jaw to attempt an apology again, but Carla glared at him, letting him no it was no use.

Perry just tapped the counter awkwardly.

“Right. I’m off to, uhh... I’m off. Sorry.”

Perry stormed away once again, a mess of charts carried in his arms.

Carla watched him until he disappeared from sight, then she rested her arms on the counter and buried her head in them to cry.

**********

J.D. was sitting outside the operating room, watching as Turk was once again sent away to be replaced by another surgeon.

Dr. Wen had been sending Turk away a lot lately. Apparently he wasn’t able to focus well, or his hands were too shaky.

J.D. knew exactly why that was.

He watched as Turk ripped the gloves off of his hands and aggressively tossed them into the trash can, disappointment in his gaze.

“Sorry, Chocolate Bear,” J.D. tried to console. “You’ll get it next time.”

Turk sighed and leaned up against the wall J.D. himself was resting against.

As they both sat in silence, J.D. suddenly heard an agitated voice pipe up from outside in the halls.

“Well now just tell me there, Bobbo, when Satan sent you up here to this God-forsaken hell-hole we call earth, did he give you clear, specific instructions on how to be the worst human being to ever walk this dump, or did that just come naturally to you, being that you are, in fact, the literal spawn of Satan himself?”

J.D. sighed, wondering what small thing Dr. Kelso did to get Perry in such a fuss.

All throughout the day, anytime Perry found something of Kelso’s to be even remotely trivial — which was a lot, apparently — he’d go and raise hell over it.

He would parade around Dr. Kelso and give him an angry rant above all angry rants, making a show of it all. Kelso would never reply with a scathing comment like he usually did; the whole time he would just watch Perry with sad eyes, knowing full well it was just some unhealthy coping mechanism.

J.D. groaned and walked out of the surgery room to see exactly what he had expected. Dr. Kelso standing there, waiting for the elevator, while Perry marched around him, spitting out his anger.

Perry had been an absolute force to be reckoned with all day; anytime an intern would approach him for help, he’d give a long speech talking about how incompetent said intern — or everybody else in the hospital — was. All of the interns were growing terrified of him, and would avoid him at all costs if they could help it.

Perry also had a short temper with his patients. He would treat them perfectly fine, the same level of quality he always treated them with, but if any of them dared to piss him off in some way they’d get an earful all while he’d try to check their heartbeat.

Perry was in pain, he was angry, and the only way he could cope was bringing others down with him. J.D. didn’t like that.

“Can you believe all of this?”

J.D.’s head perked up when he heard someone speak from not far off. He turned to the side to see a small group of interns crowded together near the elevator, heads bent down in discussion.

“He’s been driving us all crazy,” one of them mumbled. “I know he misses Dr. Dorian, but he was just a regular doctor just like the rest of us.”

A loud alarm call of _mistake!_ rang through J.D.’s ears in his imagination. 

What those poor interns didn’t know was that Perry had the hearing of a bat. This was proven to be correct as Perry’s head suddenly snapped up to attention, cutting off abruptly from the long-winded rant he had launched into. An expression like no other crossed his face; it was pure wrath, pure lividness. An expression that showed no intern would survive.

All of the snarky faces of the interns immediately transformed into pure terror and alarm as Perry’s whistle split the air.

“Alright, what the _fuck_ did I just hear?!”

The interns were frozen on the spot as Perry approached them at furious, rapid speed. J.D. winced in anticipation.

“I’ll let all you worthless little shits know that Dr. Dorian was the greatest damn doctor to ever walk through this absolute hell-hole of a hospital,” Perry spat out, voice shaking in pure rage. “He was better than any of you will ever — and I mean _ever_ — be. Even in ten years from now — if any of you retched excuses for doctors even manage to stay in this profession — I want you all to know that you still won’t have reached even a sliver of potential and skill J.D. possessed, and I mean that. Nobody, absolutely _nobody_ , will ever be able to match him. He was a fucking ray of sunshine that could light up any damn room.”

Perry’s eyes softened for a moment.

“If somebody told me that J.D. had hung up each and every single star in the sky, I would believe them.”

J.D. could see something break behind Perry’s eyes.

“Every single part of me died with him.”

Listening, J.D. didn’t even know what to feel. There were too many emotions coursing through him. He felt fear at the angry, shouting man before him, pure, undying love for that same man, joy at the stream of compliments coming from such a callous individual, and most of all a screaming desperation to be back there.

Perry’s words rang through J.D.’s heart again. J.D. felt them, as well.

He felt that not only was he a ghost due to the fact he was deceased, but also because without Perry, he was merely a figment of his past self. Without Perry, he was empty, devoid of what made him whole.

Perry straightened himself back to his original angry state and gave the interns one last hard, hate-filled stare before marching away, spitting out a final sarcastic, “All the best.”

The interns, now paralyzed on the spot, stared after him with eyes so wide it would put an owl to shame. J.D. almost — _almost_ — felt bad for them.

He quickly leapt into a fast pace and hurried over to Perry, who was passing by the nurses station. Carla was sat behind it, watching Perry was nervous eyes as if he would strike out again at any moment.

Perry just simply passed by in a flurry, face set in a broken emotion. Carla seemed to sense his distress, and she stared after him in worry.

J.D. stopped in front of the station, letting Perry march on ahead. He turned to glance over at Carla. Her eyes were clouded over in contemplation; about what, J.D. wasn’t quite sure. She stayed like that for a few minutes.

Eventually, she stood up and followed the same path Perry had taken moments before, J.D. trailing behind her. He did that a lot these days. Carla hurried on ahead.

Eventually, she stopped in front of the break room, poking her head in. J.D. joined her and poked his head right through the wall besides her.

He saw Perry.

He was sitting on the break room couch, curled into himself. He had his legs tucked up into his chest, arms wrapped around them protectively. His forehead was resting against his arms, shielding his face from the outside world.

J.D. had never once considered Perry to be small in any way, but sitting right there, he certainly did look that way, being all curled up into a protective ball.

Hearing Carla approach him tentatively, he lifted his head to peer over the top of his arms. He had clearly been crying.

“Damn those interns,” he mumbled out.

Carla gently took a seat next to him.

“They don’t know any better,” she replied. She paused for a moment. “Doesn’t excuse what they said, though.”

Perry grumbled in agreement, hiding his face back into himself.

Carla remained sitting next to him, simply offering her presence as comfort.

J.D. crept into the room, gaining horrid flashbacks of when Carla had to first tell Perry he had died. He shuddered as he sunk into the same couch he had sat in last time.

Perry suddenly spoke up.

“I’m sorry I snapped at you.”

Carla blinked at him.

“It’s okay, Perry, you’re going through a lot.”

Perry grumbled.

“I thought coming back to this place would help — honest to God, I thought it would,” Perry started. “I figured that helping people again would take my mind off of things, but...”

Perry paused to sigh again. He poked his head over his arms completely.

“Dammit, Carla, everybody in this place keeps looking at me like I’m some kind of wounded animal. They don’t stop coming up to me to tell me that they’re ‘sorry for my loss’ — give me a break...”

Perry turned away from Carla for a moment to gather himself. Tears were beginning to form in his eyes again. He choked out his next words.

“They keep telling me that J.D.’s ‘in a better place now’, but dammit, what place is better than being by my side?!” Perry snapped, fire behind his eyes. “Somebody even had the stones to tell me that I’ll eventually find someone new. But I don’t _want_ to find someone new; absolutely nobody can replace J.D., and I don’t know how these idiots don’t know that. I don’t ever want to ‘move on’.”

He sighed again, slouching down in his seat to scrub his hands over his face. Fresh tears were streaming down his face again.

“Everybody keeps telling me that I need to adapt to this ‘new normal’, but dammit, I don’t _want_ a new normal; I just want J.D.”

He was now completely lying down on the couch, arms wrapped around himself protectively. His eyes were shut tight.

“Dammit, Carla, I’m so fucking exhausted... I’m fried, everything hurts, and nobody in this dump is helping. I can’t even fucking sleep at nights because my stupid body can’t fall asleep without J.D. by my side, and when I finally do get a mere wink of sleep, all of my dreams are of him, reminding me that I fucking lost him. And then when I tried to work today, the memories of him just kept coming back to haunt me. I keep expecting him to appear to follow me around the place like he always did, but then it hits me again, and I just... Carla, I’m so tired...”

His body was wracked in silent sobs, absolute pain on his face. Angry, agonized tears were rapidly streaming down his face.

This time, Carla knew exactly what to do.

“Perry, listen,” she said softly.

J.D. noticed she was doing exceptionally well at avoiding touching at all costs. He silently nodded in approval.

“You know very well that moving on isn’t something you have to worry about anytime soon — you can take as long as you need to, you know that,” Carla consoled.

Perry stilled slightly. Carla continued.

“Ignore what everybody else says; grieving is a different process for everyone — hell, I’m still suffering through my own — and you absolutely don’t have to follow any rules for it. It’s your own healing process. It may take you days, months, and even years, but there’s never a wrong way to do it. You lost your _partner_ for God’s sake, Perry. You take as much time as you need.”

There was silence following.

Then, Perry stretched his leg out towards Carla, granting her permission to physically comfort him there. Carla figured this out and smiled weakly, exhausted.

Slowly reaching her hand forwards, she lightly gripped Perry’s ankle. He tensed for a moment, but soon melted into the touch — something he had been starved of for far too long.

J.D. grinned and blinked back tears at the sight.

Perry had actually been able to open up to Carla, and she had been able to help him the way J.D. always had. That was beautiful to J.D.

Maybe, just maybe, Perry would allow those he cared about to help him through this.

**********

J.D. watched as Perry let out an aggressive sigh and tossed his lab coat into the corner of their apartment.

A few days ago had been Perry’s first day back at work, and it still hadn’t been going well at all. Every day back resulted in Perry throwing hissing fits at anyone he could — not including Carla, Turk, or Elliot, as Perry knew they were feeling just as bad as he was. Even through the fog of anger that was his brain, he was able to understand.

Now, J.D. knew that the day would end the same, too. Perry would throw off his excess clothing and collapse onto the couch, a full night of drinking ahead of him.

But when Perry walked past the couch and instead crept towards their bedroom, J.D. gently gasped.

What was he doing?

Ever since J.D.’s death, the only place Perry slept was on the couch. J.D. knew that that was because sleeping in a bed he had previously shared with his now deceased partner was absolutely not something Perry was able to handle. So to have him walk past his usual sleeping spot, the couch, and instead hesitantly hold his hand over the doorknob to their bedroom was a huge deal to J.D.

He watched Perry with wariness in his gaze as he gently turned the knob and opened the door to the bedroom that hadn’t been opened in almost a month.

J.D. stood up on his toes to look over Perry’s shoulder.

Their bedroom looked exactly the same as it always did. It was almost a surprise to J.D.; some part of him had maybe expected it to look different somehow now that he was dead, but it was normal.

He noticed that the bedsheets were still clumsily made from when he had gotten up after Perry and had to rush out of there. Perry seemed to notice that, too, as painful nostalgia glistened in his eyes.

The older man carefully crept into the room, taking in the familiar sights and memories. Eventually he stopped to sit down on the edge of the bed.

It was all such a simple task, but J.D. was so proud of Perry.

To walk back into the room he used to share with his dead partner was something J.D. knew was difficult for Perry. And he was even managing to keep himself somewhat together.

Maybe that was a good sign.

But it would soon be crumbled down.

Perry spotted a picture of himself and J.D. sitting on the nightstand, and he reached forward to grab it.

J.D. sat down next to Perry and looked at it with him.

It was a photo from Christmas at Turk and Carla’s apartment, with J.D. and Perry wearing red and green sweaters J.D. had bought for them. The two of them were fast asleep on the couch, Perry with his arms spread out over the headrest and J.D. curled up into his side, head resting on his shoulder.

Staring at it now, Perry’s eyes immediately filled up with tears. He put the picture back on the nightstand and stood up, water flowing down his face now.

“Goddammit,” he growled.

He stormed out of the bedroom.

J.D., who had tears of his own forming in his eyes, promptly stood up to follow him.

As J.D. exited, Perry slammed the door shut behind him, murmuring a series of “Goddammit” as he went.

He marched over to the couch and immediately collapsed on it.

J.D. sighed. He feared Perry wouldn’t be strong enough to sleep in their bedroom. He gently crept over to his partner.

Perry had his hands over his face, body shaking with silent sobs.

J.D. knew what he had to do.

He padded over to Perry and crawled onto the couch with him, tucking himself against Perry’s exposed side, burying his face into Perry’s chest.

He felt him again.

That familiar warmth, that familiar comfort, he _felt it_.

And maybe Perry just thought he was imagining it; maybe he figured he was so lonely that it was all some odd fever dream, but Perry felt it too. And some part of him just knew that it was J.D. who was curled into him like he always did when they slept.

And some part of J.D. liked to believe that he really did see a weak smile cross Perry’s face as his breathing relaxed and he finally fell into sleep.


	7. Chapter 7

Perry had never talked in his sleep before.

He did now, however.

Lying there in bed, Perry was sleepily crying out for J.D., desperately calling his partner’s name out to the bedroom.

J.D. sat up from his spot next to Perry on the bed and gazed down at him.

“Newbie... J.D....,” Perry mumbled.

J.D. delicately traced his fingers over the sides of Perry’s face to soothe him from whatever nightmare he was having again. Perry instantly calmed down, but he still remained whimpering slightly.

J.D. sighed.

He had been dead for two months now, and Perry still seemed to be getting worse. Living without J.D. was getting to be too much for him.

He had exited out of his constantly angry, rage-filled state, however, and had now entered a stage where he was rapidly growing inconsolably depressed. At work his long and furious rants had just deteriorated into pathetic, quiet tirades. He would constantly mope around at the hospital and could mostly be found collapsed on the couch in an unmoving heap.

J.D. absolutely hated seeing him this way.

Perry had, at least, managed to move back into their bedroom, and he slept in their bed just about every night. Although when he was feeling especially bad, he would sleep on the couch, accompanied by many glasses of scotch.

And about a month ago, Perry had started having nightmares where he would continually call out for J.D. in his sleep. J.D. had been crawling in bed with Perry every night, so he was always able to comfort him whenever he would start again. 

J.D. still didn’t exactly need sleep, but he was able to sort of doze off. It was basically like the ghost version of sleeping.

J.D. found that whenever Perry was asleep, he was able to touch him more easily. This was incredibly helpful for Perry’s night terrors.

As Perry fell back into a deep yet troubled sleep, J.D. sighed and wrapped himself around him.

J.D. had just been following Perry everywhere he went, which was basically just their apartment and the hospital. Carla had to bring Perry food, as he refused to go out and get or eat anything.

Suddenly, Perry’s alarm went off, causing both of them to jump up, startled.

Perry growled and practically pounded the snooze button as he hissed out a series of curses.

He proceeded to immediately collapse right back into bed.

J.D. winced.

“You’re gonna be late,” he commented. “You don’t ever like being late.”

His reminder hit deaf ears.

Perry stayed in bed for about a half-hour longer. He never fell back asleep, he just laid there, unmoving. J.D. waited next to him until he finally let out a groan and painstakingly dragged himself up and out of bed.

J.D. proceeded to follow Perry as he hauled himself into the bathroom to splash water over his face and brush his teeth. Perry still didn’t shave this morning; he had only shaved about once since J.D.’s death when his beard had been getting to be too much. Now another scruffy, unkempt one was growing in.

“Shaving always makes you feel better,” J.D. advised, “why don’t you do that?”

He knew there was no way Perry could hear him, but to have that illusion of being able to hold simple conversations again was something J.D. wanted to enjoy, despite how much it still hurt him.

When he finished, Perry let out a growl and dragged himself back into their bedroom where he threw on a t-shirt and scrubs pants, grabbing his lab coat along the way as well.

Perry glanced over at the alarm clock sitting on the night stand. J.D. guessed he was running late, as Perry cursed under his breath.

He stormed out of the room, completely passed the kitchen and skipped breakfast, threw the front door open, and got out of there.

_Another new day, another regular, sad morning routine,_ J.D. thought to himself with a sigh.

**********

“Kelso fired another nurse.”

“‘Course he did.”

Carla turned from the chart she was reading to completely face Perry, who was leaning against the nurses station counter and staring off at nothing in particular.

“That’s it? You’re not gonna go raise some big fuss over it?”

Perry snapped out of his odd trance to dart his eyes in her direction. His dull, stormy-blue eyes just looked plain tired, and his wild mop of curls that he kept untamed bounced with his movements.

“Well he’s not gonna _do_ anything. He’s a jackass. He never learns.”

Carla eyed him warily. She knew exactly why he was so sullen and uncharacteristic, so defeated; he had been that way for the past week.

“If you say so,” Carla responded, exhausted sounding.

Perry went back to staring at the ground, glazed over eyes showcasing no emotion.

Back then, Perry would’ve made sure to show up Dr. Kelso. He would’ve let the Chief of Medicine know that what he did was clearly not approved of, and he would’ve made a big show of it all like he always did. But now, Perry just simply gave up as quickly as the subject was brought up. He didn’t bring up any fight.

Suddenly, Perry let out a mix between a whine and a sigh. He dug his palm into his eye, shrinking back into himself. He was crying.

_Dammit. Not again._

Ever since Perry had entered his dejected phase, he was prone to having short little breakdowns out of nowhere. J.D. assumed that Perry was remembering something about him that caused him to hurt. Any mention of J.D. anywhere had that effect on Perry.

Carla saw this, her maternal instinct kicking in.

“Perry, it’s okay,” she soothed, moving towards the disheveled man slowly as if she were approaching a scared animal.

“Dammit, Carla, it’s _not_ ,” Perry spat.

“Breathe,” Carla demanded gently.

Perry took in a ragged breath and released a broken one.

“God, how pathetic am I?” Perry said breathlessly when he got himself under control.

“Perry, it’s not pathetic to feel like this after losing someone close.”

“Well for me it sure as hell is. I can’t even take care of myself, Carla. Who’s the one who feeds me? Who’s the one who makes sure I actually show up to work somewhat on time? Who’s the one who makes sure I don’t accidentally kill myself by drowning myself in alcohol? You, Carla. It’s you. I don’t do jack shit. You know what I do? I come to this place, get kicked out of patient rooms for being too ‘unstable’, and I go home and collapse in bed and cry myself to sleep. If it weren’t for you I’d probably be dead. How strong am I, huh?”

Carla sighed and dropped her gaze. She knew now that the self-loathing, depressed rants Perry got into couldn’t be argued with. She wanted so badly to help the bereaved man and comfort him, but she knew it was a lost cause. Perry was slowly becoming a soul who couldn’t be helped.

Not wanting to think about the rapidly declining state of his partner anymore, J.D. sighed and slumped his shoulders, allowing his gaze to fall to his shoes. His shoes, which were now barely even visible.

J.D. was now almost completely see-through; he used to have a strong, bright glow around his form, with the insides being almost like a pretty mist. Now, he didn’t even glow. He was mostly just a frail outline of what used to be; a distant memory of someone who once lived. Even the tiny little stars that once floated around in him were frighteningly scarce. J.D. could probably count them now if he wanted to.

He was beginning to worry about what would happen if he completely faded away. Would luck be on his side and he would finally depart to wherever dead people were supposed to go next? Or would he just completely vanish from existence, so dead to the world that not even his ghost remained?

J.D shuddered.

He hated thinking about what would happen. What if he _did_ just disappear? Just totally vanished into darkness, never again getting to exist, not even in the world of the dead?

It freaked him out. He didn’t like pondering on those thoughts.

Instead, he wondered about _why_. Why was he a ghost? He had asked himself this question about a thousand times, but was this really the afterlife? After being a ghost for two months and not finding anyone else, he figured that this was just a fate meant for him. And maybe there had been other ghosts before, who knows; maybe he was just one of the rare, unfortunate ones.

But being a ghost wasn’t _all_ bad. He still _sort of_ got to stay with his friends.

His friends, who weren’t the same.

_And will they ever be?_

They had completely changed ever since J.D.’s death, and it made J.D. sad to see them all so broken up. Friends were supposed to stay the same goofy, happy, kind-hearted people you always knew them as, not the depressed remnants of your best friends you once knew.

But maybe they were getting better, at least.

Turk had finally started to talk to other people besides J.D.’s empty bedroom again, Elliot had stopped crying every night — she still did cry some nights, but at least it wasn’t a nightly habit anymore — and Carla was no longer just so generally sad.

The same couldn’t be said for Perry, however, and it was prominent in the way the older man stared blankly at the hospital floor, eyes glazed over from tears.

As J.D. was eyeing Perry with trepidation, fearing that he may break down again at any moment, the older doctor’s head suddenly snapped up to attention when Laverne began to mumble something from the other side of the counter over at the far end.

Both J.D. and Perry turned to look at her, curious.

Laverne was in front of her Jesus statue, palms together, head bowed, lips moving slightly as she prayed.

At first, Perry just scowled when he took sight of this, but his look soon softened. He turned back to stare at the floor.

“I wish I could have her faith,” he suddenly said.

Carla, who had previously been reading a patient chart, suddenly glanced up from it to face Perry with somber eyes.

“What?” she asked.

J.D. asked himself the same question.

“Laverne’s faith,” Perry started again. “I wish I could believe in something that strongly; to truly trust with every fiber of my being that somewhere out there, J.D.’s safe. That he’s happy and content; that he’s somewhere I’ll meet him again.”

Carla just faintly gaped at him. It was quite a beautiful moment, really. It was one where Perry was being open, and not wrapped up in hate or anger.

“When I was a kid, my sister would constantly go on and on about God and how he would eventually save us from our hell-hole of a home — if you could even call it a home. And I... I wanted to believe that, too. I wanted to be able to trust that someone out there, someone really did care about us, and that they would help us get out. But I couldn’t.” Perry’s eyes suddenly darkened. “Every day I would get the shit beaten out of me by my father for even the smallest, most trivial things, and all while my mother just watched on, and I just... I couldn’t believe that anyone would let that happen. I grew to hate God — even the concept of one — and Paige’s constant prayers and babbling about the big guy just made me hate it all even more.”

Perry continued to glare at the ground as if it were responsible for all of the wrong in the world. He suddenly squeezed his eyes shut.

“And now that J.D.’s dead, I just wish I could be comforted by a belief that he’s safe — but I just _can’t_. I can’t because I’m not able to bring even a small shred of myself to believe in any sort of person, god, — or whatever — that cares about this dump we call earth. Especially not now that J.D.’s been taken away from me.”

When he finished, Perry suddenly turned on his heel to begin storming down the hallway to leave.

“Perry, wait!” Carla called after him.

He stopped to turn around, watching Carla tentatively with tired eyes.

“Hmm?”

Carla cautiously approached him.

“I think maybe... maybe visiting J.D.’s grave would help. When I visited my mom’s to talk to her, it really helped. I think it would for you, too.”

Perry watched her carefully, eyes narrowing.

“And talk to a stone that only reminds me more that my partner’s dead? No thanks, Carla.”

He continued to storm down the hallway.

Carla stared after him.

J.D. could see the desperate need to help the suffering man in her eyes. Carla knew how broken he was, and she wanted to help. But even she knew it was starting to become a lost cause.

**********

“C’mon, baby, you need to eat _something_ ,” Carla urged.

“But J.D. loved egg salad sandwiches,” Turk began dully. “It’s unfair to eat it without him.”

“I don’t mind, Chocolate Bear,” J.D. reassured. He was sitting across from Turk and Carla at a table in the cafeteria, watching them both intently as Carla continued to try and get Turk to eat something, still to no avail.

“Elliot, can you help?” Carla exasperatedly asked Elliot, who was sitting in the seat next to J.D.

Elliot, who’s bangs were grown out over her eyes, just merely stared at Turk with empty eyes. Elliot herself was just picking at her salad with her fork.

Carla sighed.

“You need to eat, too.”

“I’m fine, Carla,” Elliot snapped. She immediately regretted it, however, when Carla shrank back.

“Oh, Carla, I’m so sor-“

“It’s fine. You can properly apologize by eating, though,” Carla quickly interrupted, completely recovered from Elliot’s sharp remark. “Have you seen how thin all of you are? I know you’re all still grieving — hell, I’m still grieving — but that’s no excuse to no longer properly care for yourselves. Don’t you guys think that J.D wouldn’t want that? He sure as hell wouldn’t want you guys starving yourselves.”

“She’s right,” J.D. added in.

He was so thankful to Carla. He desperately wished he could properly thank her for taking care of everyone. He knew that Carla was suffering herself, and yet she still took the time to try and make sure everyone was alright. She truly was the mother hen of their group.

Both Turk and Elliot mumbled their agreement and began to take small bites of their food. At this, Carla looked satisfied — but still a little somber.

Her little victory was short lived, however, when she gazed across the table to see Perry eating in the corner by himself. Actually, he wasn’t really eating — more like aggressively stabbing the food on his plate with a fork.

That morning, Carla had suggested that he visit J.D.’s grave, to which Perry had declined. Carla had tried recommending it a couple more times, but with each one, Perry had just seemed more uncomfortable with the idea. Carla had stopped after her third attempt when she realized Perry wasn’t budging.

As J.D. was watching his partner, an intern suddenly strolled into the cafeteria, making a bee-line straight for Perry.

She approached the older doctor meekly.

“Um, Dr. Cox?”

It was well known that by now, Perry wasn’t someone you wanted to mess with. Anything could set him off. It was understandable for the intern to be so careful.

“Not now,” Perry replied.

The intern gulped.

“But I just have a questi-“

“Not. _Now_.”

Perry spat out his answer, and to everyone in the room’s dismay, gripped the side of his lunch tray and slammed it on to the floor. Accompanying the loud crash of the plastic hitting the floor were the contents of the tray spilling all over the ground.

Everyone in the room had their eyes not-so-inconspicuously trained on the whole scene.

The intern was completely frozen on the spot, watching Perry with all the fear of a cornered mouse being hunted by a cat. Perry had his hands gripping the edges of the table; he was clutching it so hard his knuckles were turning white. He was glaring at the intern with fire in his eyes. It wasn’t really fixed on the intern, more so just everything. Anger had been bubbling up like lava in Perry all day, and the intern had just been the final thing to make Perry finally erupt.

J.D. felt bad for the intern. If only she had known that Perry was on the edge of a breakdown.

Suddenly coming to his senses, Perry blinked away the fury in his eyes and abruptly sat up, causing the chair he was just sitting in to go rocketing behind him.

Perry still had his gaze trained on the intern, but there was really just despair left in them, now.

Mumbling out something incoherent that J.D. could only assume was an attempt at an apology, Perry shoved past the intern and through the crowd, storming out through the cafeteria doors.

Everyone else left in the room just went back to whatever they had been doing. J.D. found that to be almost sad; were Perry’s breakdowns so common now that nobody was fazed by them anymore?

Even Carla just hung her head low and mournfully sighed out a “Dammit”. Elliot looked a little flustered, but she was completely used to Perry’s temper issues now, and Turk hadn’t even flinched at all. He was still numb.

J.D., however, stood up to follow his partner. He had to make sure he was okay.

Unfortunately, when J.D. burst straight through the solid cafeteria doors, Perry was nowhere to be seen.

_Speedy bastard._

J.D. stopped for a moment to tip his head back and stare up.

_Perry’s obviously feeling stressed and overwhelmed right now. There’s two places that I know of where he goes to when he feels like this._

First, J.D. dashed down the hallways at frantic speeds to go to the break room. Lately, Perry had been collapsing on the couch there when he felt this way, like after he gave those insensitive interns the rant of a lifetime.

As J.D. bolted down the hall, he realized that he was actually beginning to grow a little tired. It was faint, but it was there; just a small feeling of being out of breath, despite him not having lungs. Just more of a weariness feeling.

But despite his loss of stamina being small, it drove him wild with fear.

Did this have anything to do with his spirit fading? Was he actually just slowly disappearing into nothing? What would happen if he did?!

His wild, panic-stricken questions only greatly increased the hectic speed at which his legs were moving.

He ran so fast the world was only a blur. He ran so fast he almost felt like he had burning lungs again. He ran so fast that he actually got tangled up in his own legs at one point and went tumbling down to the cold, unforgiving ground. He ran so fast that he absolutely did not see the wall in front of him through the tears streaming down his face.

J.D. slammed directly into it.

It produced an actual, real smashing sound that went echoing throughout the hallway due to the sheer force of his collision.

As J.D. slid down the wall he blamed with his entire soul for the crash, he had never felt so thankful for anything in his entire afterlife more than his ability to feel no pain — even more thankful than when he had gone tumbling out of a moving car and into the street.

He knew that if he were alive, every bone in his body would’ve shattered right then and there. The impact had been so strong that it had managed to leave a mark in the wall despite J.D. being a ghost, and a few heads definitely turned at the huge slamming sound out of nowhere.

J.D. just laid on the ground, allowing his head to spin in every direction except the one he was trying to face. His head was whirling, and if he had a stomach, he was pretty sure it would cause him to puke.

And as he lay there in a pitiful heap, it all came crashing down.

After his first breakdown after his death, he had promised himself that he wouldn’t allow himself to crumble like that anymore. His friends needed someone to be strong. And sure, he had cried and sobbed a few times afterwards, but it wasn’t like this.

As J.D. was splayed out on the ground, he began to lose that calm he had desperately been clinging onto. He lost his grasp on that illusion of peace he had been holding.

J.D. began to cry.

Right there on that grimy hospital floor, he cried, and his tears eventually evolved into sobs.

He curled up into himself, clutching his legs into his chest with a death grip, and he hid his face into the crevice between his knees and his chest, sobbing into it.

He was so fucking lonely. He knew that his little act of still talking to everybody like everything was normal would eventually fail miserably. Nobody could hear him. He was dead and he couldn’t be with his friends anymore.

And not only that, but he could barely even touch them. J.D. had always been someone who thrived on physical touch and comfort, but now that he was a ghost, he couldn’t have any of that. He didn’t have that familiar comfort, which just made him even more constantly anxious. He was left alone. All he could do was touch them, and they could barely register that it was really him touching them. It didn’t feel real. He felt lost.

And he had never been so _scared_. He was slowly fading away into obscurity, and he had no clue what waited for him after disappearing, but he knew it couldn’t be good. And not only was he terrified out of his wits, he had no one to help him. He just wanted help.

But most of all, he was exhausted — and not only from sprinting down the hallway and slamming into a wall with full force. He hated being stuck in between worlds; as he saw it, there was a world for the living, and a world for the dead. He was somehow stuck in between both of those, and he had no clue how to get out and into the next. He was trapped in some sort of cruel purgatory where he was doomed to watch his friends and partner destroy themselves over his death.

Was he in hell?!

“ _What the hell did I do wrong?!_ ” J.D. shouted through sobs to absolutely no person in particular — mostly just the universe.

He just wanted to go _home_.

He wanted to be back in Perry’s arms. He wanted to be held by his partner again, just simply being able to cherish the fact that he was able to find someone so amazing to spend his life with — his life that he would give anything to have back.

But it was too late now, wasn’t it?

His body was already buried deep beneath the ground, probably rotting.

J.D. let out an agonized scream that he had been bottling up for way too long now.

And all he could think was one simple question.

_Why?_

***********

J.D. was finally able to drag himself up off of the ground after what felt like an eternity of screaming and sobbing — which was actually just half an hour.

He felt like a mess, physically and emotionally.

His face was stained with tears, and his eyes were swollen, puffy and red, and his hair was a disheveled mess after he had run his fingers through it several times. He had also tried to pull it in a delusional attempt to make himself feel any sort of a pain. He just wanted to feel alive again, even if it meant hurting himself. It was insane, and he knew that. He hated it.

He hated it all.

Everything.

But all he could do was begin weakly trudging over to the break room which he had missed on his little marathon down the hall.

Finally stopping in front of the dimly lit room, he poked his head in.

No one.

J.D. began to hiss curses under his breath, but then he suddenly remembered something through the whirling in his head. A memory hit him like a wave, almost threatening to knock him off of his already weak legs.

_J.D. gently pushed open the door to the roof, not really sure what he was expecting to find up there._

_He had been looking all over for Perry that night, and Elliot had told him that she saw him head over to the roof._

_As J.D. opened the heavy metal door, a gust of cold winter-night wind immediately hit him. He shivered._

_Pushing through the strong gust, he stepped onto the roof._

_He peered through the light snow that was falling to see Perry near the edge, resting his arms on it, staring up into the sky._

_J.D. gave a confused smile. It was a nice scene — hell, a beautiful scene; it was the most tranquil J.D. had seen Perry in a while._

_J.D. cautiously approached his partner._

_“Whatcha doing out here?” He asked._

_Perry suddenly turned around when he heard J.D., clearly not expecting anyone to be up there, especially not his partner._

_“I’m just... I like to come up here to get away from it all, y’know? Sometimes I need to breathe some air that isn’t that gross, dank hospital air.”_

_J.D. smiled as he walked next to Perry, tucking himself into the older man’s side. Perry grinned and wrapped his arms around J.D._

_“I know exactly what you mean,” J.D. replied, voice now muffled as he buried his face into Perry’s side._

_Both of them sighed contentedly._

J.D. shook himself out of the memory, not up for the pain of missing Perry anymore.

The roof.

He would find Perry on the roof.

He began to move at a faster pace now, determination now overcoming the horrible waves of loneliness and pain and fear he had previously just been feeling.

He wanted to see Perry, even if it killed him — well, killed him a second time.

After his walk through the hospital where he had tried desperately to keep himself together still, J.D. finally came across the door to the stairs leading up to the roof.

He passed through the door and dragged himself up the stairs, not quite having the energy to leap through them like he always did.

He finally trudged up to the big metal door that opened up to the roof and walked through it.

A cold gust of air swept past him, not hitting him this time, as he wasn’t able to feel it.

He squinted his eyes to see through the night.

He spotted Perry.

Just like his memory, Perry had his arms resting against the edge. Except this time, instead of staring at the sky, Perry had his head dropped down to rest against his arms.

J.D. gently approached his partner.

Everything felt exactly the same, and yet so, so horribly different.

Instead of greeting Perry like everything was normal and he could totally hear him, J.D. just stood next to Perry and propped his arms onto the edge.

J.D. was exhausted.

He wanted everything back, but he knew that all of the wishing and hoping he did wouldn’t do jack shit.

This wasn’t one of his day dreams, and after two agonizing months, that fact had finally properly set in in the worst way possible.

As J.D. glanced over at Perry who was now peering out over his arms to watch the city lights, another memory hit J.D.

_Cold, frozen night wind whipped past J.D., striking him and turning his nose and cheeks blue out of sheer frost. He only had a hoodie on over his scrubs, and he was desperately clutching that against his body to preserve the weak scrap of heat he had left._

_Despite the cold, he stood his ground out on the hospital’s roof._

_J.D. knew that Perry’s shift was just about to end, and he wanted to spend some time with him. So, he had laid a blanket out over the roof to sit on for them to stargaze._

_J.D. had tragically underestimated how cold it would be._

_But he wouldn’t give up on it; he had planned this and he would go down with this. He had even paged Perry._

_Almost like he had been summoned by J.D.’s thoughts alone, Perry suddenly appeared on the other side of the roof’s door as he swung it open. He approached J.D., already clutching his sides._

_“The hell are you doing, Newbie?” Perry asked. “Are you trying to turn me into a popsicle?”_

_J.D. chuckled._

_“Okay, so maybe I didn’t expect the weather to get this cold. But I wanted to sit up here with you. We’ve both been incredibly busy with work and haven’t been able to spend much time together, so now that we both have a break, I thought we could just go stargazing.”_

_Perry stared at J.D. with a smile, confusion and endearment on his face._

_“You’re completely insane, you know that?”_

_But despite Perry’s comment, he gently walked over to J.D. and took a seat next to him. Perry took his jacket off to lay it over J.D.’s trembling shoulders._

_“But you’ll freeze!” J.D. protested._

_“Oh, please, Newbie,” Perry laughed. “I’ve got more padding than you do. You look like you’re about to grow icicles on your nose. I’ll be fine.”_

_When he finished, Perry sidled up against J.D.’s side, pressing into him as best as he could. J.D. instantly felt warmer._

_He sighed contentedly as he rested his head against Perry’s shoulder. He could feel the muscles in his shoulder relax, indicating that Perry was at peace._

_After getting himself comfortably snuggled into Perry’s side, J.D. gazed up at the sky._

_Millions of stars shone overhead, twinkling and blinking at them both. They lit up the dark winter sky beautifully._

_“Look at all those stars,” J.D. began. “Do you ever realize just how small we really are? And... and how amazing it is, that even in such a large universe, we were still able to find each other?”_

_Perry gave a genuine, warm smile, now twining his fingers through J.D.’s hair._

_“Honestly, Newbie, it’s amazing. I still find it hard to believe that such a wonderful person like you exists, and let alone wants to be with me. You... you’re so amazing, Newbie. Don’t ever forget that.”_

_J.D. grinned, warmth spreading through him. He completely forgot he had been cold._

_“I love you,” J.D. proclaimed._

_Perry planted a kiss on J.D.’s forehead._

_“I love you, too.”_

J.D. snapped out of the memory.

Cold, frozen tears were streaming down his ghostly face.

With both of them standing there, things almost felt the same.

But J.D. knew that things were more different than they could possibly be.

He was still staring at Perry, that desperate need for all of it to be back hitting J.D. so hard he felt like he was about to have another breakdown.

“I love you,” J.D. breathed out through the pain.

He didn’t get a response.


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello, everyone!  
> First, I’d like to apologize for the late update. I was pretty busy last week, and I definitely didn’t want to rush the final chapter. So, I hope the extra wait was worth it!  
> It was very fun — and, frankly, pretty saddening — to write this. So please, enjoy the final chapter of My Lost Spirit. Thank you for reading!

Three months.

J.D. had been dead for three months.

He felt almost exhausted — sick, even.

His spirit was just barely hanging on; he was basically just a thin, pale outline of his previously bright and luminous form. He held no light. He constantly felt that at any moment, he would simply vanish like a petal in the wind, his spirit disappearing forever. He was scared.

J.D. assumed that his fading was the reason for his constant fatigue. Before, he had boundless energy — the ability to run endlessly as he pleased — but as time passed and he slowly started to vanish, that energy was quickly disappearing. Now, J.D. had lost the ability to do things like involuntarily-hitchhike — which sucked, as it had been his main method of transport — or sprint down hallways if he felt like it. He always grew tired too fast.

Sitting on the nurses’ station counter, J.D. gazed down at his almost-invisible feet and visibly darkened. He took a look at his hands, which were the same, and felt a jolt of fear.

The same feelings he had felt when he broke down about a month ago we’re all rushing back in horrible waves of anxiety.

Biting his lip, J.D. brought his gaze up to look around at literally anything else to take his mind off of things.

He noticed the time of the clock on the wall.

10:11 AM.

J.D. blinked in confusion.

Perry should’ve been there eleven minutes ago. J.D. would know that, as he had been keeping a close eye on Perry’s work schedule. J.D. never had anything better to do than study it.

J.D. blinked again, this time in realization.

Perry had also missed multiple days of work over the last two weeks. He rarely ever made an appearance anymore.

On one of the days Perry had not shown up, J.D. had gone over to their apartment to check on him. When he was there, J.D. had just found Perry lying in bed.

J.D. was right.

Perry was only getting worse.

J.D. felt useless. He couldn’t do anything when his partner was clearly in pain. He just wanted to _do_ something, but he couldn’t, and even trying to just exhausted J.D. to a whole new level.

He didn’t even have the energy to feel helpless anymore.

J.D. sunk down on the nurses’ station counter, now accepting his inevitable fate.

_Just take me._

What good was staying here if he was only forced to watch Perry rapidly decline in health?

Lying there and feeling emotionless, J.D. jumped suddenly when he heard someone come rapidly marching down the hallway near him.

He sat up abruptly to see that it was Elliot.

He tried to read her face to attempt to distinguish her emotion, but she was moving too fast.

J.D., now intrigued, slid off of the counter and onto his feet to follow her.

He caught up behind Elliot, wondering where she was going. She seemed determined to get there, which caused J.D. to move at a quick pace.

Eventually, she turned to head into the break room. She walked in and sunk down on the couch, hiding her face in her hands.

_Dear God, is this where everyone goes to break down?_

J.D. couldn’t help but see the room as a symbol of pain, now. He hated that. He hated a lot these days.

As J.D. watched Elliot cry into her hands with tired eyes, an idea suddenly popped into his head.

He never had the chance to properly say goodbye to his friends before he died, but now that he was fading into what he assumed what nothingness, maybe he could try saying goodbye as a ghost before he was gone forever.

It was odd, and it was certainly weird, but J.D. thought that his strange plan just might work.

Eyeing Elliot carefully, J.D. crept over to the TV on the wall. He turned his attention to it — his full, complete attention.

Moving things had certainly become a huge challenge for him with his extreme fatigue, but maybe he could focus enough for this.

Stretching his hand towards the ‘on’ button, J.D. took in a deep breath. He rested his hand on it.

He pressed it.

The TV turned on.

Elliot’s head immediately snapped up to full attention when the TV burst into life. Her eyes were stretched wide.

She whipped her head around to rake her gaze across the room, trying to find anyone who could’ve done that.

“It was me,” J.D. announced.

Obviously, Elliot didn’t hear him, but she seemed to figure out that it wasn’t anyone physical who did that.

Her head was cocked.

J.D. grinned. He had her attention.

Feeling more energetic than he had in two months, J.D. started to switch between the channels with a new-found ease. Elliot watched, mesmerized, as they swapped back and forth seemingly on their own.

Just to J.D.’s luck, he happened to switch over to a station that was playing ‘ _Sanford and Son_ ’. He stopped switching to keep it on one of his favorite TV shows.

_Elliot’s gotta understand._

And to J.D.’s fortune, she did.

“...J.D.?” Elliot stuttered out in a whisper.

“I’m here,” J.D. replied.

He flicked the channel switch a few more times in response.

Before, Elliot had been crying tears of pain and loss. Now, she was crying out of sheer joy.

Somehow she just knew that it was really J.D.

“J.D... I miss you...”

J.D. could feel himself begin to cry out of joy, too.

“I miss you too, Elliot.”

J.D. had tried to contact his friends many times before, and all those times, they never seemed to truly understand. But now, maybe just because of the desperation of the moment, Elliot knew he was there — and he always had been.

Leaving the TV running, J.D. left its side and gently padded over to the couch to sit next to Elliot.

J.D. took another breath.

He placed his palm on Elliot’s arm.

He could hear her gasp — not out of fear, but out of surprise and joy. She sank into the touch.

J.D. allowed himself to feel truly relaxed. He hadn’t felt this way in far too long.

“Goodbye, Elliot,” he breathed out.

And to his amazement, she responded, eyes full of awareness.

“Goodbye, J.D.”

And then J.D. felt it: a burst of energy flooding back into his spirit.

He tore his gaze away from Elliot to glance down at himself.

He could actually see his feet — and not only that, but his entire body had gained back a weak glow. He looked like he had a month ago: pale, but still there. Some of his previously missing stars were even back.

_That’s it!_

J.D. could get his spirit back — or, at least prevent himself from disappearing entirely — by finally saying goodbye.

He had never been ready before, but now, he felt prepared for his final goodbyes — his last moments with his friends.

“Thank you, Elliot,” J.D. whispered one last time before standing up, gently releasing his hold on her arm.

Elliot looked at peace, like she finally felt contented again, knowing that J.D. was safe.

And J.D. knew that that tranquility and acceptance was the reason he was coming back. And now he knew what he had to do next.

J.D. ran out of the dimly lit room and bolted down the hallway, absolutely loving that his usual energy was back. He could finally feel the air rush through his hair again, and spring so fast his thoughts all jumbled together. He missed that.

J.D. realized that he was actually feeling happier than he had felt in... well... three months.

He had finally found a way to contact his friends in the form of a goodbye, his energy was back, and he wasn’t doomed to an inevitable fading away after all.

It was awesome.

Reaching the hospital’s doors, J.D. hunched down into a crouch and gave the largest jump out through the exit he could possibly muster.

He landed clumsily and ended up tumbling down the stairs, but he didn’t care. It was a sign that he was back.

He leapt to his feet. Glancing around, he wondered how exactly he was going to get to his desired location. He could probably involuntarily-hitchhike now, but he had to find the right car.

Waiting for a few minutes in the cold, J.D.’s head perked up when he heard an approaching car.

_Jackpot_.

It was racing right towards him, it’s roar growing steadily louder.

J.D. braced himself. He hadn’t gone car hopping in a while, but he was sure he would be able to do it. His spirit depended on it.

When the vehicle was finally right in front of him, J.D. allowed himself to take a deep breath and become passable.

The car whirled into him, and in the quick moment where he was inside of it, J.D. was able to make himself solid.

He landed in the backseat.

“Yes!” J.D. shouted, throwing his fists in the air.

He was back.

The woman driving was totally oblivious to the ghost in her car. 

“Thanks for the ride,” J.D. joked, not even caring in the slightest that she couldn’t hear him.

She drove the car out of the hospital’s parking lot and continued down the road that led to Turk and Carla’s apartment. They were both off of work that day, so J.D. knew they would be there.

As the car moved at a leisurely pace down the road, J.D. stuck his head out of the window, feeling much like a dog.

When the car started to turn down a road that wouldn’t lead to Turk and Carla’s apartment, J.D. braced himself, tensing up all of the muscles in his ghost to prepare. Poised and ready to leap, J.D. sprang.

Feeling like a kid again, he soared through the air for a brief moment before falling into another car, which he was able to solidify in.

Glancing up and shaking the feel of his little trip off, J.D. noticed a man driving, with a woman in the passenger-seat. In one of the back seats besides J.D. sat a little boy, along with who J.D assumed was his older sister.

“Excuse me for intruding,” J.D. joked.

The family remained in conversation with each other.

Unfortunately for J.D., they started to turn the car away from where he needed to go almost immediately.

“Crap!”

J.D., without thinking, abruptly leapt from the side door without thinking. He tumbled onto the road before another car drove over him, carrying him off.

J.D. blinked open his eyes to find himself upside-down in the passenger seat of a pickup-truck. A stern looking, bearded man drove it.

“Morning,” J.D. greeted.

Clambering around like a newborn baby deer, J.D. adjusted himself so he was sitting upright.

_God, I forget how fun car-hopping is!_

J.D. almost felt alive again.

Soon, when _that_ car began to turn, J.D. jumped into another car, and then another, and then another.

It was the most fun he had had in way too long.

Before long, he finally reached the apartment building.

Giving one last large leap from a car, J.D. landed clumsily on the sidewalk in front of his old apartment building.

“Finally,” he panted, feeling a little worn out.

He ran into the familiar building and dashed up the stairs, choosing to forget his previous fatigue.

Finally, he stopped in front of their door.

Instead of knocking — a habit he once accidentally performed as a ghost — J.D. strolled through the door and into their apartment.

Immediately he saw Turk and Carla both curled up on the couch, embracing each other in silence. It was a tender moment.

Approaching them gently, J.D. wondered how he would ever be able to obtain their attention. Gazing around the room — that frankly hadn’t had a good clean in a while — J.D. finally found something that caught his attention.

He ran over to his and Turk’s beloved pet, who rested in the corner next to the television.

“Heya, Rowdy!” J.D. greeted the stuffed yellow lab. “Good boy.”

Tenderly stroking the dog’s back, J.D. suddenly wondered if Rowdy had ever had to come back as a ghost.

“Did you, boy? Did you have to go through what I’m going through?”

Rowdy stared at the wall.

“I hear ya. Good boy.”

Turning his attention back to his human friends on the couch, J.D. watched them intently as he gave Rowdy a little shake.

The dog wobbled.

Carla seemed to glance over in Rowdy’s direction, but she remained still.

“C’mon, boy,” J.D. encouraged. “We got this.”

Putting more feel into his sparkling hands, J.D. rocked Rowdy some more, creating a very obvious sound.

To J.D.’s luck, both Turk and Carla turned around.

“What was that?” Carla asked, alarmed.

“Relax, boy,” Turk calmed the dog. “I think he just wants some attention.”

“Did something move him?”

“He moved himself.”

Carla smacked Turk on the shoulder.

J.D. grinned at his accomplishment, giving Rowdy another good nudge as he did so.

Both Turk and Carla’s eyes widened.

“Baby, I didn’t do that!” Turk gasped.

“It’s me!” J.D. tried to alert them.

Carla suddenly shivered and wrapped her arms around herself.

“Turk, it feels weird in here.”

Turk just stared at Rowdy, an idea forming behind his eyes.

“It’s J.D.,” he suddenly announced.

_Yes!_

“W-What?”

“Baby,” Turk whispered, gripping Carla’s arm, “It’s... it’s J.D. — I... I just know it. He’s here.”

Carla stared at him in astonishment.

“Really?”

Turk nodded, full confidence shining in his previously hopeless eyes.

“Vanilla Bear,” he whispered, voice thick with emotion.

J.D. stood up and wrapped his arms around the both of them so they were all in one huge hug.

“Chocolate Bear; I miss you,” J.D. whispered into Turk’s ear, tears slowly sliding down his face. “And Carla,” he continued, “thank you.”

And he could feel it again.

The feeling of new life being breathed into him, giving him the energy he had lost before.

As he pulled back from the embrace, he could see a look of astonishment and ease on Carla’s face, and one of final peace on Turk’s.

J.D. had said his final goodbye to them.

***********

J.D. carefully watched Perry, silently willing him to move.

Perry was lying in their bed, completely still, other than the gentle, ragged rise and fall of his chest. He had himself buried in the sheets, hidden from the world.

J.D. had no clue how he could possibly get Perry’s attention.

How could he properly say goodbye to Perry when Perry wasn’t ready to?

Still desperately eyeing Perry, J.D.’s head suddenly perked up when he heard a gentle knock on the front door.

“Perry?” A voice called. It was Carla.

_Thank God! Maybe she can help him._

But Perry merely groaned and burrowed deeper into the bed.

“Perry, where are you? I know you’re in here!”

Again, no response from the grieving man.

J.D.’s head tilted in confusion when Carla started to unlock the door, but then he remembered that she had a spare key they had given her for emergencies.

Fully alert now, J.D. watched as the bedroom door slowly opened with an ominous creak.

“Perry?” Carla gently asked.

A muffled groan sounded from the lump of bedsheets.

“...How the hell did you get in ‘ere?...?”

“You gave me a spare key a while ago in case, and I quote, ‘Newbie ever gets stuck in the refrigerator again’.”

Perry let out a small chuckle.

“I kid you not, he actually managed to do that once. One day, when I finally got home after work, I heard him kicking around in there; when I finally managed to pull him out he was entirely blue. I had to wrap him in every blanket in the apartment, the needy thing.”

As Perry was finishing, clear affection was dripping from his voice.

Although J.D. was cringing at the memory of that frightening day, he was able to smile at the fact that Perry was able to talk about him.

But then the older man spoke again.

“Dear God, Carla, what am I supposed to do without him? I can’t just replace the guy who managed to trap himself in a refrigerator — I just can’t.”

There was clear pain in his voice, now.

Carla eyed him with sympathy as she gently lowered herself onto the foot of the bed.

“Perry.”

No response.

“Perry, look at me.”

There was a loud shuffle as Perry struggled to untangle himself from the mess of bedsheets. After he eventually managed to wrestle himself out of the blankets, his head poked out.

He looked awful.

His curls were as long and unkempt as ever; they were splayed out in every direction possible. His eyes were red, swollen, and sunken in, and he had a scruffy, ragged beard.

So, basically, he looked as expected.

With his tired eyes, he cautiously watched Carla.

“Now, Perry,” Carla began. “I know that the idea of visiting J.D.’s grave seems weird right now-“

“Will you stop bringing that up?! I already told you, I will _nawt_.”

“Don’t interrupt me,” Carla snapped, her old feisty spirit returning. “Now just listen. When I first went to talk to my mom’s grave, I thought it was really weird. But then when I just started speaking from the heart, I got to tell her everything I never got to say, and that really helped. Truly. And I think that it would help you. I think J.D. would appreciate it.”

Perry blinked at her, his mouth struggling to find the right words.

“I know, Carla, but I just...”

He stared at the ground.

“...I’m scared.”

He sighed.

Then, Carla gently gripped his ankle.

“Perry, I know it sounds scary and new and weird, and it will probably feel strange at first, but you’re so much braver than you give yourself credit for right now. I know you’ll be able to do it, and I know it’ll help. I believe in you.”

For a moment, Perry still looked to be against it.

But then he threw the sheets off of himself to sit up.

“Carla, I...”

Carla smiled at him.

“Don’t worry about it.”

Perry dipped his head.

“...Thanks.”

Carla stepped out of the room as Perry changed t-shirts and threw on some jeans. When he walked out of the bedroom, he padded over to the couch to grab his coat, which was lying on the headrest. He spoke as he threw it on.

“I’ll go drive myself over to the cemetery.”

Carla blinked at him as she spoke the words J.D. himself wanted to say to Perry more than ever.

“I’m proud of you.”

***********

Loud crunches sounded beneath Perry’s feet as he planted them on many dead leaves. More of them swirled down through the chilly air to land on the ground.

Perry took a deep breath.

He was at the cemetery’s entrance.

J.D. was standing beside him, waiting for his partner to be able to go inside. He had rode with Perry in the passenger seat to get there.

_I’ll finally get to say goodbye._

Anxiety suddenly coursed through the young ghost.

Was _he_ even ready to say goodbye? To finally let go of Perry after having him for so long? To finally accept that they were separated?

J.D. shivered, and not just because of the winter chill.

At his side, Perry took another deep breath and began to gently walk into the cemetery.

It was time.

J.D. followed by his side, glancing around a bit to take in the scenery of the tranquil place.

_My resting place._

Paying no attention as he watched the trees crash and sway in the breeze, J.D. stopped abruptly when he heard Perry halt.

He swung his head around to see why.

Gazing down, J.D. read the tombstone buried in the ground in front of Perry’s feet.

_John Michael “J.D.” Dorian._

_We’re here._

He could see a look of grief on Perry’s face.

“Heya, Newbie,” Perry began tentatively, eyeing the grave. “You shouldn’t have to be stuck down there this soon.”

He let out a grunt as he gently lowered himself onto the grass. J.D. followed him. 

“Sorry I haven’t been able to visit you, but... I haven’t been able to do much else, so... I, uh... I hope you understand...”

As Perry ended, he rubbed the back of his neck. He looked sheepish.

“Sorry, Newbie, this is just... weird... I mean, I feel like I’m just talking to a stone. It’s not like the way we used to talk.” Perry glanced down at his feet. Nostalgia washed over his face. “Remember some nights when we would stay up far later than we should’ve just talking? Even on the nights we had to work in the morning — we just...” Perry trailed off. He began to pick at the grass mindlessly. A weak smile spread across his face.

“We’d talk about anything, remember...? Sometimes it was about simple things, like work, patients, Gandhi, Barbie, Carla, and sometimes about how much of an ass Bobbo was that day. Then there’d be the times we talked about things like our childhoods, or just our pasts in general...

“Y’know, you were the only person besides Carla who I’d been able to talk to about my childhood. You just... you never gave me those pathetic looks or unwanted sympathy, you just _listened._ I’d was able to finally tell someone about the hell I endured and not be on the receiving end of someone who saw me as some poor, lonely creature who needed a hug. You just saw me as _me_. And I needed that. So... thank you.”

Perry took a moment to take in the peaceful sights of the cemetery around him, relaxing his breathing as the leaves crashed overhead. A few small tears ran down his face.

“Remember when we first got together?” he started again. “We both thought that sleeping together had been a horrible idea, but look where it lead us. Damn, Newbie, I had never been so happy before we got together. I was miserable, but then... dammit, Newbie, you were... amazing. I can’t even put into words how wonderful you were. You made me happy.”

The wind picked up, causing Perry’s curls to gently flow in the breeze. He wrapped his coat tighter around himself, the tears on his face streaming down at a steady pace now. The leaves still crashed and rustled overhead.

“I still can’t believe you’re gone. I just _can’t_. One minute you’re here, and the next you’re just gone from my life. It’s so damn difficult to adapt to this, Newbie. Life without you is, well... it’s hell. It’s more than hell. I know that if you can see any of this you’ll know — you’ve seen what I’ve been like.

“At the hospital I just keep expecting you to appear from around the corner or something... I just keep waiting to hear your voice again, waiting for you to show up and follow me around again like always. And then I remember that that’s not going to happen anymore, and I just... I feel like I can’t keep going. Like a life without you just isn’t worth it anymore. That probably sounds stupid to you, but... It’s so damn _difficult_. Every night I still dream that you’re back with me, like this whole thing was just one of those nightmares, but then I wake up and realize again that it’s all _real_ , and I feel like I can’t do it anymore... I can’t keep feeling like this...” Perry’s voice was choked up now, each word becoming a struggle.

“I blame myself for your death for some reason. And that guilt keeps dragging me down into the pit that I’m already half-way in down thanks to this grief, and I’m slowly losing that energy to keep climbing. When I used to get like this, you were always the one to help me. Only you could do that. But now...” he trailed off.

He stared at the sky for a moment to collect himself.

“Dammit, I’m trying to get better. I’m really trying, because I know that’s what you would want. I’m sure seeing me destroy myself sure as hell isn’t what you want after dying, so I’m trying to get better for you. But dammit, it’s so hard. Getting up in the mornings is an entire challenge in and of itself, and I still constantly have to call in to work to say I can’t make it that day because it’s such a fucking challenge to even get myself dressed. And then actually going into work is just about the hardest thing to do, and by the end of the day I feel like shit, and then I’ve already attempted to drown everything in drink.

“And I know that this’ll continue for a long time... even years, maybe, but I swear: I’m trying. I promise. And fuck, I know that I’ll think about you and miss you every single damn day, Newbie. I know that with every breathing moment, every single moment I’m _alive,_ I’ll be thinking of you. Thinking about how fucking unfair it was that you had to be taken from me; about how much I hate this shitty world for stealing you away when it was way too early... But maybe years from now, I’ll be able to remember you and smile, because I know that’s what you would want. You could never be happy unless everyone else was happy. That’s one of the reasons I love you so much.”

Perry’s eyes lowered.

“I could never understand how someone as amazing as you could love me. Here you are, a literal ray of sunshine, and then there’s me: a cynical, broken, sarcastic man.”

Perry grinned suddenly through his tears.

“But I sure as hell didn’t object to your love. You made me a better man, and I mean that — entirely. I’ll never forget you, and that’s a promise. Even though I lost you so soon, I’ll always remember every little moment we shared. I wouldn’t change anything about the time we had together. Know that your life was my life’s best part.”

And then, for one final time, J.D. felt it.

He felt a sudden peace wash over him like a wave.

And he knew that he was ready.

J.D. closed his eyes and pressed himself into Perry’s side, resting his head on his partner’s shoulder.

Perry sighed a contented sigh. He knew J.D. was here.

“Newbie...” he whispered.

“Perry...” J.D. responded.

The two of them were finally together one last time.

And now, J.D. finally got to say the words he had been wanting to say with all his heart for so long. The words he never got a response to before.

“I love you,” J.D. breathed out, voice thick with emotion, tears running down his face.

He finally got a response.

“J.D.,” Perry choked out, “I love you, too.”

J.D. nuzzled his head into the crook between Perry’s head and neck.

He could feel himself fading away.

However, he wasn’t fading away into obscurity and nothingness, he was simply moving on. He was moving on to the place where the departed go next — a place of resting, peace, and tranquility; a place where J.D. knew he and Perry would find each other again some day.

Each of the little stars inside of J.D. were glittering away in the wind, carrying him into the proper afterlife.

And just then, J.D. knew exactly why he had come back as a ghost.

It was because he hadn’t been ready to say goodbye.

Perry had just said it: J.D. couldn’t be happy unless everyone else was happy. Before he could go, J.D. had to make sure that all of his friends would be okay without him. And although they would remain sad for a while longer, J.D. knew now that in the long run, they would all be okay.

He had been given the chance to properly say farewell to everyone.

That’s why he had come back.

But he was ready now.

Ready to say goodbye to the man he loved.

And although it would pain him to leave Perry behind, he was ready to move on to a place where he finally got to rest. Besides, what use was it to stay in a world that only saddened him?

Losing his grip on the world of the living, J.D. simply took in Perry one last time.

He admired his form, his stormy-blue eyes, his auburn curls, the way the muscles in his jaw flexed, and the way he just simply _lived_.

It would be a while until J.D. saw him again, but he knew that once they met again, all of those things would still be absolutely stunning to J.D.

Perry would, no matter what, always have that effect on him.

Leaning forward, J.D. rested his forehead against Perry’s. Perry did the same.

They could feel each other’s presence as strong as ever.

J.D., through powerful tears, stared deep into the eyes of his partner. He took in one final, deep breath.

“Goodbye, Perry.”

“Goodbye, J.D.”

The air stilled around them, leaves gently fluttering down. Everything was calm.

And then, after his long journey, J.D. finally began to fade.

His spirit broke off into little shards and began to flitter away in the soft breeze, the stars carrying the rest of him away into the true afterlife.

And although it was time for him to leave his friends and partner, he knew that he would eventually see them again, and that they would all be fine before then.

Life would go on without him.

Watching him go, Perry stared up at the sky with tears in his eyes.

J.D. had finally found his way.

———————————————————

_”There are no happy endings.  
Endings are the saddest part,  
So just give me a happy middle  
And a very happy start.” — Shel Silverstein_


End file.
